


Diplomatic Relations

by Nemi_Almasy



Series: Nihlus Lives [1]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: AU, Action/Adventure, F/M, Fluff, Nihlus Lives, Partnership, Relationship(s), Smut, ex Saren/Nihlus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-13 01:01:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11748831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nemi_Almasy/pseuds/Nemi_Almasy
Summary: Part 1 of a Nihlus Lives AUShepard is granted Spectre Status three years after her bravery on Elysium during the Skyllian Blitz. She's assigned a mentor in veteran Spectre and shameless flirt, Nihlus Kryik, both as a means of guiding the first human Spectre to succeed in her tasks, and as a means of improving Turian-Human relations.Five chapters exploring the development of their relationship from Spectre partners to lovers over four years, building up to Part 2 - an altered ME1 timeline





	1. A Turian-Human Alliance

Jane Shepard never considered herself a hero, but the title had been thrust upon her against her will after the Skyllian Blitz. She would never downplay her accomplishments: she had deserved the Star of Terra, and she had seen too many women before her downplay their own skills only to be used as a doormat for their modesty or to have men, far lesser men, take credit for their accomplishments. Single-handedly holding back an onslaught of batarian pirates _was_ an accomplishment.

Still, _hero_ felt too grandiose, too self-absorbed. She would never apply the term to herself, but ever since her actions during the Blitz, humans around the galaxy (and even some aliens) had begun to use the word liberally.

“Shepard? She’s a goddamn hero. Saved half of Elysium during the Blitz.”

“You’re _Shepard_? _The_ Shepard?”

From ship transfer to ship transfer, the whispers were the same.

The Blitz had earned her a promotion to lieutenant in addition to the shiny badge pinned to her uniform, but she often found herself wedged between superiors who scrutinized her endlessly, as though her skills during the batarian siege had been a fluke, and subordinates with serious hero-worship problems. The promotion should have made her proud, but it had mostly given her grief.

A few years passed, but no matter where Shepard found herself, the shadow of what she had done at the tender age of twenty-two seemed to follow her. She didn’t let the irritation of questioning superiors and fawning subordinates stop her from doing her job, but it wore on her day after day. Rising in the ranks only gave her more paperwork and fewer field missions; by the time she was twenty-five, she was a commander who spent half of her life at a desk in the cabin of her ship.

She was serving under captain David Anderson, an old friend and the same man who had convinced her to enlist and leave behind her troubled life back on Earth. Of all her assignments, working under Anderson had thus far been the most rewarding. He never micromanaged or questioned her; he had been one of the only superiors to trust her implicitly, possibly due to their long-standing friendly relationship.

It was Anderson who put her name forth to the Council for consideration for Spectre Status.

Not once had Shepard considered the path. There were no human Spectres, and while she could acknowledge that she was an excellent soldier, she didn’t think so highly of herself as to think that _she_ would be the one to break that barrier for humanity. Spectre status had never even crossed her mind. Her few interactions with the Citadel Council had left a sour taste in her mouth: the aliens were condescending, suspicious of humanity, never interested in helping without some sort of strings attached. Spectres had always seemed like the Council’s obnoxious little pets, unbound by rules or regulations, getting their hands dirty so that the councilors wouldn’t have to.

Why Anderson had put her name forward was beyond her, but it had happened all the same and after a routine visit to Earth for annual checkups, the SSV Normandy had set coordinates for the Citadel on the Council’s request. The letter they had sent was short and simple:

_From: Esteemed Councilors Vesidius Sparatus, Jaela Tevos, and Aggert Valern_

_To: Captain David Anderson, Alliance Navy; Commander Jane Shepard, Alliance Navy_

_Cc: Nania Karos_

_Re: Commander Shepard’s bid for Spectre Status_

_Captain Anderson and Commander Shepard,_

_Your application for Spectre Status has been reviewed and considered. Please set route for the Citadel at your earliest convenience for further discussion on this manner. An appointment can be set with our scheduler, Nania (copied here)._

_Sincerely yours,_

_Councilors Sparatus, Tevos, and Valern_

Anderson had scheduled the appointment without input from Shepard and they had arrived at the Citadel not long after departing from Earth. She kept quiet on the manner, mulling over the possibilities in her mind. She had doubted the Council would take the application seriously from the moment Anderson told her about it, but their request to speak to her in person suggested otherwise.

If they granted her Spectre status, she was well aware she had no means of refusing the honor. She wasn’t simply speaking for herself now: she was speaking for all of humanity. Hero or not, few would have forgiven her for snubbing such an opportunity for advancement.

Chief among those who would fail to understand her reasoning for turning down the offer was Donnel Udina: the human ambassador on the Citadel. She was certain he’d played a role in putting her name forth, because a human Spectre meant a better chance of a spot for humanity on the Council. He was a weasel, only interested in his own political gains, but he was powerful too. If Shepard refused the Council’s offer, Udina would find a way to make her life a living hell.

She could handle Udina though, it was disappointing others that she really found difficult.

Why had her actions on Elysium put such an enormous weight on her shoulders? She had simply done what was right, what had to be done to save lives.

Of course, she was probably getting ahead of herself. An invitation to meet with the Council was hardly an offer to become a Spectre.

When the Normandy docked in the Kithoi Ward docking bay, the other soldiers on board were released for shore leave while Shepard was forced to stay behind with Anderson. He had suggested she pack a bag of essentials, as there was a possibility she wouldn’t be returning to the Normandy. She was just finishing her packing when Anderson knocked softly on the door to the bunk room shared by the crew members.

“All set, Shepard?” He leaned against the doorway, the corners of his lips turned into a slight smile.  The captain had aged in the seven years since she’d met him, speckles of grey peppering his coarse black hair, his face creased with lines from both laughter and worry.

Shepard knew that becoming a Spectre didn’t entail completely delisting from the Alliance, but her status would certainly change: she would be more of a contractor than a full-time soldier, which meant she would be removed from service aboard the Normandy.

She would miss Anderson dearly if she had to leave.

Holding up her duffel bag, she rose to her feet. “All my possessions in one bag.”

“You always did know how to pack like a soldier, Shepard,” Anderson laughed. “I’m embarrassed to admit the amount of crap I have in my apartment here on the Citadel.”

Shepard had never had an apartment, hadn’t had a home outside of the vessel she was assigned to since she was eighteen. It made it easy to travel light and own little.

“Do you really think they’ll approve the application, sir?” She asked, following Anderson along the crew deck to the stairwell that lead up to the bridge.

“I don’t honestly know.” Anderson shrugged. “But you had a hell of a lot of captains and admirals willing to put their names forward in your defense. And I’ve never seen a human applicant asked for a private meeting with the Council. I don’t want to get your hopes up, but it looks good.”

Shepard didn’t have her hopes up, by any means. Spectre status seemed more like a burden than a gift. No one questioned a turian Spectre who slipped up, there were a dozen others doing their jobs diligently, but if Shepard made even one mistake, it would be subject to the scrutiny of billions of watching eyes. _That_ was a lot more responsibility than commanding a group of soldiers aboard an Alliance frigate.

The Citadel always felt a bit cold to Shepard, especially in the wards, as though the station-wide temperature had been set for alien physiology. Undoubtedly, it was catered to the asari, who were more or less the rulers of Council space, though they claimed equal share with the other Council races: the turians and the salarians. She didn’t know a lot about asari biology, but they must have preferred slightly cooler climates.

This was what she considered as she followed Anderson into one elevator, down to the exchange in C-sec headquarters, and across to another elevator leading up to the Citadel tower where the Council conducted their business. She folded her arms across her chest, a little shiver running down her spine.

“Do I have to forfeit my N7 armor if they make me a Spectre?” She asked.

Anderson laughed and she immediately felt childish for the question. “Shepard, Spectres have access to top-of-the-line non-commercial armors and weapons. I’m sure they’d let you keep the N7 armor if you really wanted to, but I’m willing to bet they’ll have something better in line for you.”

She glanced down at her scuffed breastplate where the red and white of the N7 logo had begun to fade and chip. She _liked_ this armor. It had saved her life on more than one occasion and she thought the shield boosters were the best she’d ever used. Besides, becoming an N7 had been an on honor on par with her Star of Terra, at least in her mind.

But _of course_ the Council would have access to better armor, and boosters.

The elevator seemed to take a lifetime to rise up to the top of the Citadel Tower. Granted, it was the highest structure on the station, but the rate at which the elevator was moving seemed inordinately slow.

“Damn these Citadel elevators,” Anderson grumbled. “Always takes ten years to get anywhere around here. This is why I stick to the Silversun Strip whenever we’re here on shore leave. It takes too damn long to get anywhere. Rapid transit’s a joke too. Nothing ‘rapid’ about it.”

He wasn’t wrong.

Eventually, the elevator slowed to a halt, its glass doors allowing a muted view of the top floor of the Citadel tower before they slid open and Shepard and Anderson stepped out.

The floor of the tower was a fine marble, or some approximation of it. It had likely been pulled from some colony world Shepard had never stepped foot on, so there was no saying if it was the same marble she knew from Earth. That kind of uncanniness was common on the Citadel: all sorts of alien designs and technology that were familiar enough, but always left Shepard with a sense of doubt as to whether or not she _really_ knew what they were.

The smooth path of marble led past a small fountain and a series of benches where diplomats sat waiting for meetings with the Council, or else came to take a break from the hustle and bustle of the embassies down on the Presidium. Reporters could typically be found clustered around the stairs leading up to the Council chambers, speaking into recording drones about the most important meetings occurring within.

Shepard had been up to the top floor of the tower just twice in her lifetime, and never into the actual Council chambers themselves. The two times she’d gone up had been to meet with Udina while he waited for a meeting with the Council; she didn’t exactly hold fond memories of the place.

As they drew closer to the stairs leading up to the Council’s private chambers, a reporter appeared, the light from her recording drone flashing in Shepard’s eyes.

“Commander Shepard? Is it true the Council is considering you for Spectre status?”

“The commander can’t comment on that right now.” Anderson answered for her. “Please excuse us. We have a meeting scheduled and the Council frowns on tardiness.”

They brushed past the reporter, and more behind her, up the stairs to where ambassador Udina stood with his arms crossed and his lips pursed. His foul expression was accentuated by the deep-set forehead wrinkles his frown created; his widow’s peak was the only part of his greying hair that hadn’t receded far from said forehead.

At the top of the stairs, the chambers were visible: a large, open stage with a small platform upon which the subject of interest was meant to stand while the Council looked down from a balcony above. Crowded balconies surrounded the room, filled to the brim with interested observers who were allowed to listen, but never speak; reporters were strictly excluded from the crowd.

The Council had not yet arrived, but Udina swept into the chamber without a word regardless. When Shepard and Anderson remained at the precipice of the staircase, he turned around with a huff.

“Get in here, the Council will be out any minute.”

Hesitantly, Shepard followed Anderson forward into the center of the room, acutely aware of the eyes of hundreds of aliens, and a handful of humans, trained on her from the balcony. Before Shepard could ask what she should do or where she should stand, a voice sounded from over an unseen speaker system.

“Attention please, the esteemed councilors Sparatus, Tevos, and Valern are taking the floor.”

A door swung open from the side of the balcony directly above the room and a turian, an asari, and a salarian stepped out, each walking gracefully along the walkway until they reached their stations in front of small terminal screens.

The turian was a hulking man, with broader shoulders than most turians, but a smaller waist. His facial plating was painted with elaborate white colony markings that spread around his eyes, down his chin and mandibles, forming a tidy oval at the top of his head before running in a single stripe down the middle of his fringe. He trained Shepard with a particularly uncertain look.

The asari councilor was as beautiful as most asari were. The beauty of the asari as a race was something the entire galaxy seemed to be able to agree upon; even the krogan and the elcor were typically attracted to them. Councilor Tevos had a regal air about her, with white facial markings streaked across her purple skin, the ridges of her scalp well defined and symmetrical. Her crimson gown was both ornate and practical, only adding to her dignified appearance.

Last out, the salarian councilor, Valern, wore the most apathetic expression, mouth set in a hard, inscrutable line. Most of his face was shrouded by the blue and red hood of his robes. He set his hands atop the terminal interface in front of him and looked down to where Shepard was, staring _past_ her to where Anderson and Udina stood.

“Commander Shepard, thank you for arriving in a timely manner.” Sparatus was the first to speak. “Please step forward onto the consultation platform.”

Shepard would have liked to glance back at Anderson for support, feeling, for the first time in a long time, the nervous fluttering of butterflies in her stomach; the gravity of the situation had finally hit her. She was a little worried such a gesture would come off as weak or uncertain, so she set her gaze directly ahead and stepped up onto the platform in the center of the room.

“As I’m sure you’re aware, we’ve brought you here to discuss your application for Spectre status. This is no small request, considering one of your kind has never held such a position before.” Sparatus’ beady green eyes flicked briefly behind Shepard to Anderson and Udina before he returned his gaze to her. There was obviously some unknown meaning to his shift in focus, but she tried to hold herself still and unaffected as he spoke.

“Commander Shepard, what qualities do you hold that make you think you would be a suitable candidate for the Citadel’s Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch?” Councilor Tevos asked.

Frankly, Shepard _didn’t_ have any qualities that she felt particularly dignified her for the position over some other esteemed soldier. Surely there were admirals in the Alliance more suited to Spectre status than she was. If killing a few hundred batarians on Elysium and knowing how to lead a squadron made her suitable, then there were plenty of other soldiers just as able, and likely more willing.

Of course, that sort of response was equivalent to turning down the offer that had not yet been made.

Clearing her throat, Shepard found her voice to answer the councilor. “I don’t make a habit of boasting about my abilities. I believe action speaks volumes over words. That said, if I’m being asked to defend my capabilities, I’m sure you’re already aware of my service history as part of the application put in by captain Anderson and ambassador Udina. I was awarded the Star of Terra at twenty-two for single-handedly holding off a siege of batarian pirates on Elysium. I’m an Alliance commander with N7 infiltrator status. I’m proficient in several weapons classes. None of these things in particular set me apart from any other Alliance officer with a rank attached to her name.” She took a small pause and sighed, bringing forth the word she would have preferred not to use. “Other humans refer to me as a hero. I don’t know if I would call myself that, but people recognize me when I step off my ship. I have a well-respected reputation with humanity. I believe _that_ is what makes me a suitable candidate, councilors.”

The speech made her stomach churn slightly. She hoped it held any conviction, since she wasn’t feeling much. Others would have given a limb to stand before the Council with an offer of Spectre status. Why didn’t she want it more?

While the councilors spoke in hushed tones above, the onlookers on the balcony were chattering excitedly to one another, each speculating on whether or not the Council would decide to grant humanity such a coveted position. Shepard afforded herself a glance around while the councilor’s eyes were not trained on her, scanning the crowd of alien eyes above.

A flashy bit of neon red caught her attention at the far end of the balcony closest to the councilors’ terrace. A lean turian stood in a set of fine, but well-worn black armor, painted with streaks of red, glowing neon lines running along the sides of the armor that spread over his cowl. His colony markings were the same as the councilor’s. His bright green eyes were watching her and the way his mandibles were set, brow plates slightly raised, it almost looked as though he were smirking.

Shepard knew remarkably little about turians, apart from what basics she had learned in military training. Relations between humans and turians were strained, at best. The First Contact war had only been a little over twenty years earlier: a blip on the radar of galactic time. All of the turians Shepard had met were haughty and condescending. Once or twice, out to a bar with her fellow marines, she had encountered packs of them, always ready to make a crude comment about humans and how easily their flesh would tear.

Civilians were, by and large, still afraid of turians. Who could blame them? The aliens were the very model of apex predators with their razor-sharp teeth barely concealed by the mandibles at the sides of their faces and the long claw-like talons that armed their fingers and toes; the males made a particularly intimidating display with their long, metallic fringes that ended in dangerous pinpoints.

Shepard wasn’t afraid of turians, most marines weren’t. They were just obnoxious and arrogant, sour about being forced to end a battle that had never been fair from the start. Most of the humans and turians in the military now were only children when the war happened, the grudges they bore passed down from parents and grandparents still angry over humanity’s first encounter with intelligent life.

A turian had certainly never _smirked_ at Shepard the way this one was. She watched him for a moment with her eyebrows furrowed, setting her mouth into a hard grimace, then the councilors were speaking again and she returned her focus to them. 

* * *

 

Humanity’s first offer for Spectre was not _quite_ what Nihlus had been expecting. She was smaller than he would have thought, though taller than most females of her species; he supposed all humans seemed small compared to a turian. She was particularly _dense_ in a physical sense of the word. Though her armor covered most of her body, her musculature was evident in the thickness of her thighs and the pull of her calves. She was certainly far from the thin, waifish human women that made their home on the Presidium.

He liked how _red_ her hair was.

He’d heard a few stories here and there about the famous commander Shepard, most of which he quickly dismissed as rumors and legends. Most people even remotely familiar with humanity’s actions across the galaxy had at least _heard_ of the Skyllian Blitz. Nihlus knew that Shepard was quite young when she held off the batarian siege there, and that she had been awarded some distinguished human honor for her bravery. Some of the humans down in the wards talked about it as though she had grown a cannon on each arm and shot down an entire battalion of batarian ships. Whatever the truth of her service record was, the scars running across her brow ridge and down the side of her face were evidence enough that she’d been through her fair share of battles.

What about all those _spots_ on her face? Little pink and brown dots coating the skin, absent only where her pale scars ran like a seam across her brow and cheek. He had seen them once or twice before, knew that humans had some unparseable word for them that he couldn’t remember. What was it?

“Based upon your defense, and the recommendation of several esteemed members of humanity, we have come to a decision regarding the status of your application for Spectre status.” Sparatus spoke from the walkway in the center of the room. Nihlus glanced back at him once before returning his gaze to the commander; Sparatus was a self-important windbag.

The commander steeled herself, not allowing one hint of emotion to show on her face.

“It is the decision of the Council that you be granted all the rights and privileges of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel.”

Behind Shepard, the human ambassador’s face came the closest Nihlus had ever seen to a smile. The captain who had entered with Shepard breathed a visible sigh of relief, shoulders slumping ever so slightly.

The commander continued to stand, stoic and unmoved.

All around Nihlus, the volume of chattering increased. He leaned forward on the balcony railing and rested his chin in his palm. _They aren’t don’t yet, people, they still want to hear themselves speak._

“Spectres are not trained, but chosen.” Valern spoke, casting a nearly imperceptible sidelong glance at the noisy audience in the balcony before he continued. “Individuals forged in the fire of service and battle; those whose actions lift them above the rank and file.”

Tevos continued the spiel Nihlus had heard too many times. “Spectres are an ideal, a symbol, the embodiment of courage, determination, and self-reliance. They are the right hand of the Council, instruments of our will.” _Always_ his least favorite line.

“Spectres bear a great burden. Both our first and last line of defense. The safety of the galaxy is theirs to uphold.” Sparatus, as always, finished the speech. “Commander Shepard, do you accept the offer the Council has placed before you?”

Shepard squared her shoulders. “Yes. I humbly accept this honor.”

 _Freckles_.

That’s what humans called those spots.

“You are hereby and henceforth a member of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel, commander Shepard.”

The crowd on the balcony burst into an uproar. There were whispers of shock and surprise, cheers and hoots from the humans. A group of women on the edge of the balcony on the other side leaned over the railing and shouted,

“WE LOVE YOU, COMMANDER SHEPARD!”

The commander had the good sense not to look at them.

 “Please await the arrival of one of our veteran Spectres.” Tevos spoke over the noise. “He will act as your mentor during the coming months, possibly your partner if you find you work sufficiently well together. We have an assignment prepared that we feel is well suited to each of your unique abilities.”

Nihlus slipped into a stairwell at the edge of the wall and made his way downstairs to the consultation platform where Shepard and the other two humans stood. The bottom of the stairwell opened onto the first floor of the chambers, and he crossed the room, mandibles flicking into a grin. The commander didn’t turn to notice him until she heard his heavy metal boots tapping across the marble floor.

She had caught his gaze while the councilors had been speaking to one another after her defense, briefly studying him before turning her attention back to the councilors. Her eyes at least showed some amount of recognition as he approached her.

“Commander, this is Nihlus Kryik.” Sparatus introduced him. “He’s been a Spectre for five years. Recently transferred from his work with another veteran Spectre. We think he’d be an excellent mentor for you as you settle into your new role. Nihlus is proficient with rifles and has some biotic ability. You should function efficiently as a unit with your tech skills and his biotics.”

Shepard watched him as he approached. He was fairly good at reading facial expressions on most aliens, after enough time spent around them on missions and in his free time on the Citadel, but he had a hard time figuring out what exactly the look she was giving him meant.

He extended his hand to her and she observed it for a moment before shaking it. For a human, she had a remarkably firm grip, her tiny, numerous digits wrapping tightly around his own.

“Is there some sort of diplomatic consideration to assigning me to a turian?” She asked the councilors, even as her gaze remained focused on him.

“It certainly can’t hurt the strained relations of our two species to have the two of you work together. If you would rather an asari or a salarian we can consider it, but…”

She shook her head. “No. It’s not a complaint. Simply a question.”

Nihlus grinned. “I’m sure I’ll find plenty to show you, Freckles.”

Her eyebrows knitted together. “Excuse me?”

“That is what you humans call those spots you have, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” she replied tersely. “And?”

“Well, I could call you Spots, if you’d rather.”

“You can call me Shepard. I could even let _Jane_ slide. Are seasoned Spectres in the habit of assigning _pet names_?” She folded her arms.

“Kryik has somewhat of a reputation, Shepard. Better to let it pass.” The ambassador spoke. Nihlus glanced at him fleetingly. He could never remember the man’s name, but he did know every encounter he’d had with him had been tedious and grating.

Shepard took a deep breath and tempered her emotions. “Okay. I’m working with the turian.  What kind of assignment did you have in mind? What happens next?”

“That is a discussion for a more private location,” Tevos explained. “Please meet us one floor down in our private offices. Nihlus will show you the way.”

The councilors dismissed themselves and Nihlus turned to Shepard. “You’ll have to say goodbye to your human friends, Freckles. Only Spectres are allowed down into the councilors’ personal offices.”

She approached the ambassador first, rigid and unsmiling. “Ambassador Udina. Thank you for your recommendation that has earned me this honor.”

The ambassador responded with all the warmth of a frozen tundra. “This is a bold and important step for humanity, Shepard.” Nihlus was sure he heard the unspoken statement: _d_ _on’t fuck it up._

She turned to the other human next, saluting in the Alliance fashion, but there was decidedly more emotion on her face when she spoke to him. “Captain Anderson,” her voice quavered, “it has been the greatest honor of my career to serve beneath you.”

“You’ve done good, Shepard.” Anderson’s voice was similarly affected. “I’m proud of you.” He saluted in turn. Nihlus watched the emotional display with interest. He was familiar with Alliance policies on personal relationships and fraternization, which ostensibly extended to any type of relationship, romantic or platonic, that grew beyond the boundaries of acceptable military protocol. He was certain Shepard’s relationship with this man was more than that of a marine and her commanding officer. He spoke to her with an almost parental gentleness.

Goodbyes finished, Shepard dropped her salute and faced Nihlus. “I’m ready.”

“Follow me then.”

He walked away at a brisk pace and she struggled to keep up with him as they descended the steps away from the Council chambers. A swarm of reporters awaited them at the bottom of the stairs, recording drones flashing in their faces as they were assaulted with a barrage of questions from all sides.

“Move aside, please,” Nihlus growled. “We have official Council business to conduct. _Move aside!_ ”

He placed his hand on the small of Shepard’s back and pushed her through the crowd, checking the reporters to one side or the other as they moved, occasionally barking ‘No comment!’ at the particularly persistent ones.

They followed them all the way down to the elevator, where Nihlus barricaded the doors until they closed and drowned out the overwhelming noise the reporters had created. Then it was just the two of them standing together in silence as the elevator made its descent.

“It’s a bit soon to decide you don’t like me.” Nihlus leaned against the elevator wall opposite Shepard. She stared at him.

“Who said I don’t like you? I don’t know you.”

“You don’t trust me.”

“I haven’t met a turian who wasn’t an arrogant asshole, so forgive me if I don’t trust them readily.”

“Ah, you’re one of _those_ humans.” He folded his arms.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, a racist.” He shrugged.

“I’m not a racist!”

“You just told me all turians are arrogant assholes. How is a blanket statement about a race comprised of billions of people _not_ racism?” He cocked his head. “Is this a common theme amongst Alliance officers. Because _I_ haven’t met one that didn’t have something at least _vaguely_ racist to say about turians.”

Shepard’s teeth were gritted. She closed her eyes for a moment and then swallowed a sigh. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. We’re meant to be working together, we should try to get along.”

“Hm, first human I’ve met who knows how to swallow her pride. You’re all right, Freckles.”

He was sufficiently pleased with the glare this earned him. For a moment, her eyes darted back and forth across his face, then her angry expression melted into a satisfied smirk. “You’re not as awful as a turian could be, _Red_.”

The nickname was an insulting one in turian culture. Red plating was less common than the silver and tan hues that the majority of turians were born with, something for which he’d been picked on in military academy. Of course, Shepard didn’t know this, and she had simply retaliated with an annoying nickname to match the one he’d given her. He couldn’t fault her for that, and in fact he liked that she had struck back rather than wallowing in frustration.

His mandibles twitched into a grin. “Well played, human. Here’s our stop.”

The doors slid open on the penultimate floor of the tower and they stepped out into an antechamber where an orange-skinned salarian receptionist sat typing at a terminal next to an ornate metal door. She looked up briefly, registering Nihlus’ face and pressing a button on her desk.

“The councilors await within.” She didn’t even cast a curious glance at Shepard.

He led the way through the now unlocked door into the private offices of the councilors. Within, the councilors sat in individual plush chairs, feet raised on ottomans, a glass of wine in Sparatus’ hand. Two considerably less comfortable chairs in the center of the room had been provided for Nihlus and Shepard; they took a seat and waited for the councilors to speak.

“We’re very pleased you’ve accepted our offer, commander,” Tevos said. “We hope you understand Nihlus’ presence as your mentor. It’s important for every Spectre to have some degree of education about how the process works, though strictly speaking, there is no training period. You will commence your first mission immediately.”

“And what is my first mission?”

“We have coordinates on a drug lord who fled the Citadel two months ago. A turian named Galthus. He was being pursued by C-sec agents, but their jurisdiction is limited to the station. He managed to escape, but intel puts him on a turian-run colony: Invictus. We’d like you and Nihlus to follow the coordinates and bring him to justice.”

“I assume Spectres are afforded some sort of vessel?” Shepard asked. “Or do you just thrust me in headfirst with no provisions?”

Nihlus liked the slightly testy note to her questions. She wasn’t afraid of the councilors and she was clearly well aware that she was no longer speaking to them as an Alliance officer.

“Nihlus is in possession of a vessel that the two of you will share.” Sparatus stared at her uncertainly. “The bridge of this vessel is fully stocked with a crew of his assembly: well qualified pilots and navigators as well as a Spectre requisitions officer who will be able to fill any of your needs regarding weapons and armor. You should head out immediately. It takes a few days to get to Invictus and we don’t know what sort of information is being fed to Galthus. He may already be aware of your pursuit.”

Shepard nodded. “Then let’s not waste time.”

“Commander?” Valern spoke from his chair to their right. “Please remember that you represent not only humanity, but the Council. We expect excellence and discretion from all of our Spectres and have chosen you because we believe you have the capability for both.”

“Noted,” Shepard’s reply was short and to the point.

“Report back to us when you have more information on Galthus. We look forward to hearing from you.” Sparatus said this last part directly to Nihlus.

He nodded curtly, then he and Shepard left the councilors to whatever it was they did in their free time. He was fairly certain Sparatus spent most of his time fooling around with women far too attractive for his cracked and aging facial plates; the number of mistresses Sparatus had was a poorly kept secret, although notions of such things weren’t exactly frowned upon in turian culture.

Back in the elevator, Nihlus set course for the C-sec exchange where they would transfer to the docks and board his beautiful, beloved little clipper: the Callisto. While some Spectres were personally assigned ships by the Council, the Callisto belonged to him and him alone. A Spectre’s salary was not inconsequential and he had spent the first five years of his service on a Council-owned vessel; once he’d been reassigned, he’d purchased the Callisto for a small fortune and hired on a crew of dependable men and women: mostly turians and asari, though a few were humans. He loved that little ship an inordinate amount.

“So, you’ve got your own ship?” Shepard asked while the elevator made its painfully slow descent.

“Yes. You even get your own cabin. Unless you’d rather share mine.” He shifted his brow plate suggestively.

“Excuse me?”

He rolled his eyes. “Sorry, I forgot how rigid humans are about these things. It’s just my personality. No need to worry yourself, Freckles.”

“Are you going to keep calling me that?”

“Probably.” He shrugged. “It has a better ring than Shepard, don’t you think?”

“As long as you think Red has a nicer ring than Nihlus.”

“You can call me that all you want, Freckles.” He grinned.

She looked slightly put out that he _liked_ the nickname, but she didn’t say anything else.

Once they passed through the exchange, it was another tedious elevator ride up to the docks. The Callisto was anchored at the very end of the Spectre-exclusive dock twenty-seven. She was a small vessel, meant for speed and stealth, with no weapons systems to speak of, but a drive core to rival the likes of the Alliance’s Normandy. Nihlus brought Shepard to a halt in front of the clipper, drinking in the comforting sight of her smooth steel exterior.

“What do you think?” He asked.

She crossed her arms and checked her hip to one side. “It’s tiny.”

“It’s not a warship,” he growled. “Spectres have to work quickly and go unseen. This ship suits those needs. Come on, just take a look at the inside and maybe you’ll change your mind.”

She followed him inside with a look of marked uncertainty.

The airlock led into the bridge, where his asari pilot stood leaning against the back of her seat talking to one of the turian navigators. They both nodded and smiled when he entered.

“What did you drag in this time, Nihlus? An Alliance officer? Don’t they usually hate us?” Stavort, the turian, laughed.

“Stavort, Rizenda, this is commander Jane Shepard. She’s just been inducted as the Council’s first human Spectre.” Nihlus clamped his hand down on Shepard’s shoulder and felt her tense beneath him.

Stavort and Rizenda gaped at him for a moment. “They seriously went through with it? I got a comm from a friend on the Presidium who said there was a human Spectre being brought in, but I wrote it off as a rumor.” Rizenda shook her head. “Damn. I guess congratulations are in order.”

“Thanks,” Shepard wiggled her shoulder from Nihlus grip. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Come on, Freckles, I’ll show you the rest of the ship.” He tugged her along past the crew members, introducing them in rapid-fire fashion, enjoying the way her head nearly spun at the wealth of information she was being bombarded with.

An elevator at the end of the bridge led down below deck to the private chambers. The second floor down was the crew deck, where his crew ate and slept and showered, and the third floor down was his personal deck, outfitted with a room on either side and a recreational space in the center. He had converted half of the space into a makeshift gym with some free weights, a treadmill, and a punching bag; while the other half was made up of a large, ratty couch with a vid screen in front of it. Further toward the hull, a personal pantry, cooling unit, and cooking range were stocked with his own stock of dextro food.

“This is all ours?” Shepard asked as she observed the space.

“All ours. I’m afraid the treadmill is a bit long: made for turians. You could probably still use it. And I’ll have to order in some levo food for the pantry down here, but in the meantime there’s levo food on the crew deck one floor up.”

“It’s nice,” she said sincerely.

“My cabin is over there.” He waved to the left of the room. “Yours is here on the right.” He led her over into the room, which he had decorated with a simple bed, a dresser, and a desk in anticipation of her arrival.

“I’ll need to speak to your requisitions officer about upgrades.” She said, dropping a small duffel bag onto the bed that she’d been toting around from the Council chambers. “What about bathing? Do I have to use the communal showers?”

“There’s a shared bathroom space just beyond our little mess hall here. No need to worry, there’s a door with a lock.” He grinned.

“What makes you think _I’m_ the one who should be worried, Red?” She folded her arms. “You think because I’m smaller than you I couldn’t take you if I wanted to? I’m not afraid of you, and your little personality quirks don’t impress me. I earned this role, just like I earned every other rank I’ve held. So you can keep using your cute little nicknames and smirking at me, but I’m going to hold my own out there. I just hope _you_ can keep up.”

With that, she shut the door in his face.

She was incredibly defensive, and a little feisty.

He liked her already.


	2. An Alien Amongst Aliens

Invictus was four days’ journey from the Citadel even with the relay jump and FTL drives, but that was still three days faster than the Normandy could have traveled. Shepard would not admit it directly to Nihlus’ face, but the Callisto was an efficient ship, well purposed for its role. It was evident immediately that the turian was incredibly proud of his little vessel, and she wanted to be careful not to say anything to boost his already enormous ego.

She had never met a turian quite like him, though he certainly had _some_ distinctly turian qualities. He was a proud creature, boisterous nearly to the point of arrogance. Most turians wanted little to do with humans outside of a fight, but Nihlus seemed to genuinely appreciate humans. In fact, he seemed to genuinely appreciate anything with a pulse and a decent temperament. She was shocked at first by how freely and openly he flirted with his crew, but after a few days it was obvious that it was just his personality. After that, it had been a little easier to bite back at his comments without feeling slightly uncomfortable.

Mostly, though, he left her alone. His sleep schedule was different than hers and she had not quite pieced apart _when_ he slept and when he was awake. Occasionally they crossed paths as one was leaving the bathroom and the other was entering it, but typically she would wake, exercise, shower, and spend some time reading up on the target they were hunting all while Nihlus was sleeping soundly in his own cabin.

She had met some of the crew out of necessity: the only levo food was located on the second floor in the crew cooling unit, so she had spent a little time chatting with some of the humans and asari that helped run the ship. Based on their friendly demeanor, Nihlus had clearly chosen the crew himself.

Shepard had hoped that when Invictus came into view, she might feel some affirmation that accepting Spectre status had been the right decision for _her_ personally. She’d spent a good portion of the trip dwelling on the effective change in career, mourning the loss of her captain and her crew as she was forced onto this new ship teeming with aliens and lacking a single familiar face. She hadn’t felt so very alone and uncertain since her first night away from Earth.

Unfortunately for Shepard, when the Callisto began its descent into the atmosphere of Invictus, she felt nothing but bleak doubt. The turian colonies built on the planet were mostly isolated to desert areas, the rest of the planet nearly uninhabitable due to the dangerous native lifeforms there. A desert might be a suitable location for a turian, with their thick metal plating and propensity for dispelling heat, but it looked like hell to her.

At least the requisitions officer had outfitted her with a temperature regulation suit to wear beneath her armor. The armor had been a lengthy argument in itself; the requisition’s officer insisted it would be better for her to purchase a Spectre-class upgrade, while she insisted the Council _had_ to have access to shield boosters that would do that job for her, so that she could at least keep one part of her former life with her. In the end, the requisitions officer had told her she could keep the armor if she wanted to die a quick, avoidable death at the hands of a souped-up over-calibrated gun, then outfitted her with new Spectre gear.

She had kept her dog tags as a compromise.

As the ship prepared to land, Shepard stood near the airlock waiting for Nihlus to arrive. She was tense, uncertain about what they would find below. Invictus was a turian colony, and most of its inhabitants were therefore turian, though it was known for harboring a wide array of criminals hiding out from the Terminus system, which undoubtedly meant batarians and possibly even vorcha.

“Ready, Freckles?” Nihlus greeted her, outfitted in his red and black armor.

“Only if you are, Red.”

It had annoyed her how readily he had accepted the obnoxious nickname she’d given him in return for “Freckles”, but she had almost exclusively referred to him as such since she’d arrived on the ship, so it had more or less stuck.

“That’s a decent set of armor. Needs to be worn in, though.” He eyed the jet-black armor the requisitions officer had given her. The only hint of color was a red streak up either side of her torso.

“Hopefully we’ll get the chance here.”

“Hm.” Nihlus stared out the window and his subvocals buzzed. “Invictus is a shit heap. A testament to turian stubbornness. It never should have been colonized and it almost wasn’t. These coordinates aren’t specific. All we know is that Galthus is somewhere in Shastinasio. Doesn’t really narrow it down much, considering the size of the city. We’ll have to do some recon.”

“Good thing the word ‘reconnaissance’ is in our title.”

“Are all humans this sarcastic, Freckles, or did they make you special?” He cocked his head.

Shepard hesitated with her response. Another sarcastic outburst bordered on meeting his usual flirtatious tone, which she didn’t approve of, but a serious response was decidedly _Alliance._ The hesitation was enough to make Nihlus smirk.

“Still not totally comfortable, are we?”

“Let’s just focus on the job.” She leaned back on her soldier personality again.

The Callisto pulled into dock along a dusty pier at the top of a bleached-out city of white. Shastinasio was the capital of Invictus, spanning out as far as the eye could see, but consisting predominantly of smaller buildings than most colonies. There wasn’t a skyscraper in sight; the tallest building maybe hit ten stories.

“Unusual layout,” Shepard noted as they stepped off the ship. She was immediately struck by a wave of overwhelming heat. Her temperature regulation suit kicked in quickly, cooling most of her body, though her exposed face was already reddening, sweat trickling from her scalp.

“It was built hodge-podge over the years. The winds come in strong in the winter months, which makes it dangerous to build too high, and they get sandstorms in the summer, which is also a problem. So they built out instead of up. Spirits, it’s hotter than the sun out here.” Nihlus’ mandibles twitched.

“If you think it’s hot, how am I supposed to hold up?”

“Follow me. I know a place we can get some intel and cool off.”

He led the way down the docks into an elevator, the floor of which was coated in a thin layer of dust. Shepard quickly found that this dust seemed to coat every surface of the city, sweeping in through cracks in doors and windows to settle inside of buildings as well. The shadows cast by the buildings once they descended into the city provided little reprieve from the overwhelming heat.

They seemed to walk forever, Shepard’s face beet red and coated in a thin sheen of sweat. Nihlus glanced at her once and laughed.

“You’re almost as red as I am, Freckles.”

“Human beings weren’t meant to exist on this planet,” she growled.

“Undoubtedly. I’m not convinced turians were either. Here, this is the place.” He came to a halt in front of a small, non-descript building with blacked-out windows. She couldn’t fault anyone in this heatsink for blacking out windows if it kept out the sunlight.

Stepping inside, the sharp contrast of the dim lighting within to the bright sunlight outside left Shepard temporarily blind. She stood directly inside the doorway blinking stars from her eyes while her vision adjusted to the building’s interior.

Nihlus and his apex-predator vision seemed to adjust immediately. She was vaguely aware that he had left her side, but unable to see much further than a few feet in front of her. After a few seconds, he returned, arms folded across his chest.

“I don’t understand how your people colonized one planet, let alone dozens.”

“We only do stuff in well-lit places.” She responded, still blinking her eyes; the room was slowly beginning to take shape around her.

They were in a seedy little bar absolutely filled to the brim with turians, and nothing but. Dozens of tables were scattered around the room, packed in close to one another, each teeming with groups of men and women drinking and shouting and socializing. They barely bothered a glance at the door, though a handful of turians seated closest to it eyed Shepard unsurely.

“I don’t think they get many humans here.” Nihlus patted her shoulder. “They won’t have any levo alcohol. Or if they do it’ll be swill for the batarians.”

“We’re not drinking anyway. We’re on a mission.” She protested.

“This isn’t the Alliance, Freckles. Recon often involves settling down and acting like the locals. You think anyone in this bar is going to give up information on a drug lord to two Spectres asking questions? No. But half this bar has armor on because they’re mercenaries, so we can still blend in. Now let’s grab a drink and find a table, shall we?”

It was obvious Shepard still had a lot to learn. Alliance missions, while sometimes centered around stealth, predominantly consisted of brute force ground attacks. Hell, her single most famous feat had been nothing but shooting and ducking against an onslaught of batarians; she wasn’t exactly well versed in blending in and taking things slow.

“I fail to see how I can blend in seeing as I haven’t got talons or a fringe,” Shepard complained.

“Your aesthetic shortcomings _are_ unpleasant,” Nihlus nodded, “but we’ll soldier on.” She gave him a dirty look that went unnoticed. “Pretend we’re mercs or bounty hunters or something. Just follow my lead.”

They approached the bar where two female turians were serving up drinks to a seemingly endless number of patrons filing in and out of the area. Nihlus leaned on one corner of the bar and Shepard stood beside him. She was tall, as far as human women went, but standing amongst so many turians, she had never felt so short in her life.

One of the bartenders glanced fleetingly at her and turned her attention to Nihlus. “What’s up with the human?”

“We’re hired hands. I told them to send a turian instead, but I’m not important enough to listen to.” He leaned his elbow on the bar and rested his head on his hand. “Your waist would look good with my arms around it.”

Shepard rolled her eyes at the corny line, surprised and a little disgusted when the bartender’s neck flushed blue. “If you’re trying to charm me into giving you a cheap drink…I’m considering it.” She flicked her mandibles.

“I might be.” Nihlus grinned.

“Does the human want something too? We’ve only got two types of levo drink here.” The bartender nodded to Shepard.

“She’ll take whichever’s cheapest.”

“Don’t break the bank on my account,” Shepard replied dryly.

“And what’ll you have, Stripes?” The bartender asked, fluttering her eyelashes.

“Turian brandy. Neat.”

She poured up the drinks, handing them over with a little grin. “Yours on the house.”

Nihlus left too large of a tip, winked at the bartender, then gathered up the drinks and carried them across the room to a table that had two unoccupied seats. Shepard followed him, feeling more out of place than she had ever thought possible. She had always approached missions with a sense of calm collectedness; even if she was nervous about the outcome, she was never nervous about the process.

Being a Spectre was decidedly different than being a marine.

There were three other turians at the table Nihlus had chosen, a male and two females, sipping at drinks and talking in loud, inebriated voices. They stared at Shepard as she and Nihlus took a seat, clearly distrustful of her; there was something hungry and animalistic in the male’s eyes that set Shepard on edge.

“Hope you don’t mind if we sit here,” Nihlus said. She wished she could parse out turian subvocals and their meanings; his had hit some low pitch she could hear, but couldn’t understand.

“Go ahead.” One of the women shrugged. Her plating was a rich creamy tan color and she had purple markings splayed across her face in diagonal lines.

“What’s with the human?” The man asked, tilting forward slightly. He was smaller than most turians Shepard had seen and she at least felt confident that she could take him in a fight if it came to it, though not if the dozens of other turians in the room came to his aid. He had no colony markings, which made her uneasy for reasons she couldn’t place.

“A bit rough to look at, I know, but she can hold her own in a fight.” Nihlus shrugged.

One of the women laughed at that, but the man kept his beady black eyes trained on Shepard. “She your bitch or something?”

“ _Excuse me_?” Shepard growled.

Nihlus’ hand was on her shoulder then, squeezing with just enough force to keep her in her seat: a good thing since she had been one second away from tossing her drink in the man’s face and smashing the glass across the top of his head.

She’d never met a turian as handsy as Nihlus was; most of them usually looked disgusted enough just shaking a human’s hand. She found in their short time together that he communicated with touch in a multitude of ways, and not just with her, with his crew as well. There were humans who were the same, but she had never imagined the behavior with a turian.

“Kind of feisty for a human. You letting him give it to you, little human?” The male across the table raised his brow plate. “You’re so tiny. I bet you’ve got a tight little…”

“Fuck off, Malob.” The second turian woman interrupted him. She had red plating, like Nihlus, with black colony markings that were nearly invisible against her dark plates. “You’re scaring her.”

“I’m not scared of a turian who thinks he’s tough shit,” Shepard growled. “You want to take this outside, _Malob_? I guarantee you’ll be singing a different tune when I rip those mandibles off your face and shove them down your windpipe.”

Nihlus’ grip on her shoulder was like a vice, talons suddenly digging into the little gap in her armor. She winced and glared at him.

“Big talk for a human.” Malob sneered, but there was clearly a glint of fear in his eyes. He tipped his empty glass and snorted. “I need more to drink.” With that, he stood up and left for the bar. Nihlus’ grip on Shepard’s shoulder loosened and he let his hand slide away from her, back to his side.

“Sorry about him.” The red-plated woman said. “He’s a brute, but Valista works with him, so we tolerate him.” She nodded to the woman next to her, who shrugged noncommittally at the comment. “I’m Lux.”

“I’m Callus. This is Freckles.” Nihlus said. Shepard could have killed him.

“Humans have such weird names.” Lux cocked her head at Shepard. “No offense.”

“None taken.” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms.

“So, what brings the two of you to the beautiful, hospitable city of Shastinasio?” Lux asked. “And what brings a human in particular?”

“Just on a hunt. There’s a bounty out for a fugitive who’s supposedly hiding out here. That’s how we make our money.” Nihlus glanced sidelong at Shepard. “I was supposed to have another turian working with me on this hit, but they sent a human. She doesn’t hold up well in the heat, but it is what it is. We’ve hit nothing but dead ends, so we figured we’d get a drink and get out of the sun.”

He _was_ good at improvising stories on the spot, Shepard had to hand it to him. She would never have come up with anything so quickly, though she had always been a horrendously bad liar. Good thing lying was now part of her job description.

“Bounty hunters, huh? You’ll find plenty of those here.” Valista rolled her eyes. “I’m going to go get a drink with Malob. I’ll be back in a minute.” She rose to her feet and sauntered across the bar, leaving them alone with Lux.

“And what is it that you do?” Nihlus sipped at his drink. Shepard hadn’t touched hers yet; it smelled like licorice and hot peppers.

“Oh, I just work at the docks hauling cargo. Malob and Valista work defense for a bank on the other end of town, but Valista and I know each other from military service. You from Cipritine, Stripes?” Lux eyed Nihlus’ facial markings.

“In a manner of speaking. Your markings aren’t familiar to me.” He leaned forward. “They are gorgeous though.” His subvocals purred as he spoke. Was he functionally incapable of speaking to anyone without shamelessly flirting?

Lux’s mandibles pinched tight against her face. “Cute, but you’re not my type.”

Nihlus was unfazed. He blinked languidly and leaned back in his chair. “What is your type then?”

“Someone with a significantly shorter fringe.” She laughed.

“Fair enough. Can’t fault me for trying. Maybe my human friend could interest you.”

Lux eyed Shepard for a moment. “You _are_ pretty muscular for a human. But all that hair freaks me out.” Shepard supposed it could have been worse. She had no interest in the turian woman, so she was just relieved the feeling was mutual. “So, who exactly are you looking for? I overhear all sorts of things at the docks. For the right price, I might be able to give you some information.”

“Ah, Shastinasio,” Nihlus sighed. “Anything can be bought for the right price here, or so I’ve heard.”

“You heard right. So, you tell me a name and I’ll tell you my price.” Lux leaned back and folded her arms.

“That easy?” Shepard was skeptical.

“You know what kind of shit salary I make hauling boxes at the docks? Dunno where you’re from, human, but on some colonies, we have to do what we can to scrape by.”

Shepard bristled. What did this stranger know about it? As if Shepard didn’t know what it meant to ‘scrape by’? As if she hadn’t had to fend for herself for most of her miserable life on Earth before she’d joined the Alliance? She was well aware she was entirely too defensive about her past, and the woman’s comment had hit a nerve. She saw Nihlus glance at her briefly before turning his attention to Lux.

“We’re looking for a turian by the name of Galthus. The bounty is pretty promising, but the information is limited,” he explained.

“Galthus, huh? I’ve heard some chatter around the city about him. I might be able to give you some information if you’ve got the credits.”

“How much are we talking?”

“Three thousand.”

Shepard scoffed. _Three_ _thousand_ credits for a bit of information? Surely they could find out where this guy was by some other means. Nihlus’ obnoxious charm obviously wasn’t going to win this particular woman over, but there had to be a way to gather intel that didn’t involve forking over thousands of credits to someone who might not even tell them anything useful.

Nihlus just shrugged. “That’s fine.” He tapped on the omni-tool at his wrist. “I’m transferring it now. What’s the information?”

Lux checked her own omni-tool and nodded when she received the credits. Shepard was shocked Nihlus had paid the money so readily.

“Galthus came in a couple weeks ago through a private dock. I wasn’t on assignment for that dock, but I heard from the guy who was working it because it was supposed to be all hush hush that he’d landed. They took him in a little caravan to a safe-house outside of the city. It’s in a bunker, but you can access it through the tunnels…if you can get past the security systems. There’s an entrance on the eastern wall.”

“Good intel. We’ll look into it.” Nihlus took a long sip of his drink. “Not going to drink yours, Freckles?”

“It smells like excrement.” Shepard swirled her drink, her stomach churning at the unpleasant sight of it.

“That’s batarian Viskas. I wouldn’t drink that if I were you,” Lux suggested.

“I know it’s a turian colony, but you could consider that levos outnumber dextros ten to one in this galaxy.”

“Typical human mindset. I wouldn’t go to Earth expecting a large selection of dextro liquor.” Lux rolled her eyes.

Nihlus finished the rest of his drink in one gulp and stood up, clamping his hand on Shepard’s shoulder. “Time to go, Freckles. If we keep sitting around, someone will scope our bounty and then we won’t get paid.”

He took off and she scrambled after him.

“Good luck! You’ll need it!” Lux called after them. 

* * *

 

It was obvious just from looking at Shepard that she was a skilled soldier, and she could likely hold her own in a room full of politicians, but she lacked a certain finesse when it came to espionage. She had also clearly never spent enough time in a room full of turians to be comfortable around so many at once, which would have been more fun to watch if Nihlus didn’t have his mind on the mission first and foremost.

He had been pretty close to letting her deck the rude turian man at their table, but the last thing they needed to do was cause a scene.

Nihlus didn’t like to adhere one-size-fits-all labels to other races, but Shepard was a human through and through: emotional to a fault, sensitive, and ready to start a fight with anyone who threatened or underestimated her. Those traits could certainly be useful in some situations, but he would need to teach her the value of setting aside personal feelings and impulsiveness when the mission called for it.

“I can’t believe you gave her three thousand credits without flinching. She could have lied to us, you know?” Shepard complained as they made their way across the city in the sweltering heat, headed for the eastern wall.

“I’m good at reading people. I knew she’d give us what we wanted.”

“Not good enough at reading her to know she wasn’t interested in you.”

“I knew.” He shook his head. “I also knew that if I put on a little charm and then eased off as soon as she told me she wasn’t interested, she’d take it as a sign of respect and be more likely to open up to me.”

“I’m skeptical.”

“It’s too bad you weren’t her type. That was plan B.” Nihlus’ allowed a little chirp to escape his subvocals. Shepard rolled her eyes.

“What if she wasn’t my type?”

“What _is_ your type, Freckles? Let me guess: some lithe, muscular human who isn’t afraid to let you rough them up a little.” The mental image was delicious.

He liked the look of Shepard, but it was apparent she was uncomfortable with his flirtatious behavior, so he’d at least attempted to tone it down when speaking to her directly. It came so naturally, though, that sometimes he was hardly aware he was doing it. Most of the time, he never even meant anything by it. It wasn’t as though he wanted to sleep with every single person he talked to or flirted with, he just liked the little looks and sounds his friendly behavior could inspire. People felt good when they thought someone wanted them, and Nihlus liked making people feel good.

 “You don’t know anything about me, Red. And I’m not about to start discussing my sexual preferences with you.”

“Too bad. I would have shared mine with you.” Nihlus shrugged. “We’re going to be spending so much time together for the foreseeable future, we ought to get to know each other.”

“I think I’m already aware of your sexual preferences. Anything with a vagina and a pulse.”

“That’s narrow-minded of you, Freckles. I’m not picky about genitalia.”

This at least elicited a look of surprise from her. She looked as though she wanted to say something, even opened her mouth for a brief second as if to start a question, but just as quickly she closed it again and soldiered on through the heat.

Nihlus did wonder how she was managing, even with her temperature regulation suit; her face and hair were drenched in a salty, pungent sweat. He was grateful turians didn’t sweat, though he had enjoyed licking the saltiness from the skin of plenty of humans before.

“Please tell me the Council sends you to nicer places than this occasionally?” She wiped the back of her hand across her forehead and drew it away glistening.

“Occasionally. I’d still take heat over cold any day, though. Turian physiology isn’t well-adapted to the cold, but our bodies are quite good at expelling heat.”

“Why would anyone colonize this place?”

“I’ve seen some of the planets your people colonized. What’s that human phrase? Something about glass houses?” He raised his brow plates.

“All right. Point taken.”

He could at least admit that, compared to other humans, she was capable of swallowing her pride on occasion.

It took nearly half an hour to reach the eastern wall of the city, and from there another fifteen minutes to find the gate leading down into the tunnels that supposedly stretched below and out beneath the desert sands. Nihlus didn’t doubt the veracity of Lux’s claims: the tunnels had likely been built with the city as a means of avoiding the winds and sandstorms only to be closed off and reclaimed by the crime-lords who swept into city in the years after.

The gate itself was little more than a round hole in the ground, but it was locked with a powerful security mechanism, and tech had never been Nihlus’ strong suit. A powerful enough biotic blast could probably break the lock, but it would also drain him considerably, especially after the long haul in the heat.

“Time to show me some of your skills, Freckles.”

Shepard rolled her eyes and knelt down next to the gate, bringing up her omni-tool and typing away. She looked almost bored as her eyes scanned the screen, moving back and forth rapidly as she tapped occasionally through the system.

“Don’t get too used to this,” she said as she typed.

“Too used to what?”

“Me on my knees.” The corners of her mouth twitched into the faintest grin and Nihlus could have fallen over backward in surprise. He must have hid his reaction poorly, because she glanced briefly at him and then laughed. “Not used to having a taste of your own medicine, Red? Don’t get any ideas. I just knew you were thinking it.”

He hadn’t been, but he was now.

If he was being honest with himself, her features had interested him from the start. He’d never been with a spotty human before, nor one with such vibrant red hair. He would have readily slept with her and thought nothing of it, but humans tied a lot of strange values to sex, and the Alliance in particular had rigid rules about so called ‘fraternization’ between coworkers. Turians had no such notions, and Nihlus wasn’t the least bit worried that such an interaction would make things awkward between them. Too bad Shepard was so very _human_.

She finished hacking the gate and it slid open to reveal a narrow, winding stairwell leading to the tunnels below. He hopped down first and she followed, sealing up the gate behind them and plunging them into total darkness. Nihlus hit the flashlight function on his omni-tool, the light in the stairwell too dark even for his typically excellent night vision. Shepard followed his lead.

“Well, at least it’s cooler in here.” He said, descending the steps slowly.

“Thank God. I thought I was going to die out there.”

“Now, Freckles, what kind of mentor would I be if I let you die on your first mission?”

“Hm, probably the same kind of mentor that offers his bed to me the first night on his ship.”

“My offer still stands. I’d be happy to teach you about turian notions of sexuality any time you’re ready.” He laughed.

“I think I’ll probably never be ready. Come on, long-legs. Move faster.” She nudged him in the back.

Maybe she was a little uptight on some issues, but he thought, overall, she was good at taking a little ribbing and giving it in return, and that was what he needed in a partner more than anything else: someone he could work with comfortably.

Someone like Saren.

But Saren was in the past, and Shepard was _definitely_ not him.

The stairs ended at the base of a tunnel with a ceiling that rose only a few inches above Nihlus’ head. It was at least cool and comfortable down in the tunnel, with plenty of room to walk without slouching, which was more than he could say for some of the places he’d been on human colonies. He could hear Shepard trailing behind him quietly.

“So if we find this guy, what then?” she asked.

“He’s going to have armed guards with him, undoubtedly. We’ll need to take down the guards discreetly and then bring him in. Ideally, we rough him up enough to get him in cuffs and then take him back to the Callisto. Worst case scenario, he flees and we have to shoot him.”

“We can do that?”

“We can do whatever we want, Freckles.” He shrugged. “I could go back to that bar and shoot ten patrons in the head and as long as I came up with a plausible enough excuse, the Council wouldn’t do anything about it.”

“That’s horrible.”

“That’s being a Spectre. It’s not like the Council just picks people up off the street. They count on us not to be murderous psychopaths before they grant us our status. You’d have to do something pretty bad to lose your status too. Maybe not _you_ specifically, since you’re the only human Spectre and any slip-up could cost you that. But a turian, for instance, they’d have to…I dunno, try to assassinate an important political figure…or kill another Spectre…attack a colony indiscriminately. Something like that.”

“It still seems dangerous to give that kind of unbridled power to anyone,” she said. “People with unlimited power are more susceptible to abusing it.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll keep you in check.”

The tunnel stretched on endlessly, occasionally breaking into forks; whenever they reached one of these, Nihlus would bring up a map of the area on his omni-tool and hope he was orienting them in the right direction, away from the city. He could see how easily someone could get lost down there.

For a long while they walked in relative silence, the only sound their boots tapping gently across the smooth stone floor of the tunnel.

Shepard was the first to break this silence. “So…Stripes, huh? Is that a turian name for your colony markings?”

“Yes,” Nihlus nodded. “The markings are Cipritine. That’s the capital of Palaven. Most people with Cipritine markings are called ‘Stripes’ by strangers. There are other names for markings from other large cities and colonies, but they aren’t as common.”

“I don’t understand much about the markings,” she admitted. “I used to think they were familial but I understand it has to do with where you’re born?”

“Sort of. I wasn’t technically born in Cipritine. I was born on a military outpost in turian space. There aren’t colony markings for outposts. They’re just stations like the Citadel. In those cases, you take the markings of your family. My mother was from Cipritine and my father took her markings when they bonded. When I turned fifteen I took the markings too.” He was always open to explaining turian customs to ignorant humans, especially when they asked nicely.

“So Councilor Sparatus is from Cipritine too?”

“Ostensibly. Sparatus and I aren’t great friends. You’ll come to dislike the Council quickly enough too, I’m sure.”

“Oh, I already don’t like them,” she laughed. “I’m sure if they keep sending us on missions like this, I’ll even hate them soon.”

Nihlus grinned and said nothing.

It took several minutes of walking before the tunnel showed signs of an end. Another stairwell led up through a gate similar to the one they had entered. Nihlus briefly worried that they might have somehow turned around as they wound through the tunnels, but his concern was quickly relieved by the sounds of muffled voices just beyond the gate.

“I still think we should post someone up at the gate in the city.” The voice was deep, with the rich harmonization of subvocals.

“There’s no way anyone could get through the security on these things, trust me.” Another turian responded.

“How many do you think are in there?” Shepard asked in a soft whisper.

Nihlus scanned his omni-tool. “Looking at heat signatures…there’s four in the building this gate opens into and two or three outside keeping watch.”

“Seven against two seems like pretty bad odds.”

“That’s rich coming from the woman who held off an entire batarian fleet by herself.” Nihlus pulled his assault rifle from his hip. “Open up the gate, Freckles. Galthus is in there and we need to bring him back to the Citadel.”

Shepard hesitated. “What exactly is the plan once I open it?”

“We go in guns blazing and win. We have better armor, better shields, and better guns. Just go with your instinct and we can see how the two of us work together in a firefight.”

“Going in guns blazing is definitely my style.” She shrugged and brought up her omni-tool, preparing to hack through the gate’s defense systems. Nihlus trained his gun on the door while she worked. “Brace yourself, Red.”

After a few more seconds, the gate slid open. Shepard pulled her own assault rifle from her back and the two of them stormed upward to the top of the stairs and into the safehouse Lux had told them about.

The turians within the safehouse were so taken off guard by the gate opening that it bought Nihlus and Shepard enough time to shoot down two of them before they could even reach for their guns. A third was drawing a pistol, while the fourth, who Nihlus recognized from the Council’s briefing report as Galthus, ran for the door.

The sounds of gunfire had alerted the guards outside to the intrusion. They came in through a door opposite the one Galthus ran for. Nihlus made easy work of the remaining guards, a few bullets clipping his shields, but nowhere near hurting him. He turned to chase after Galthus only to find Shepard using the full force of her body to tackle the large turian to the ground.

He never would have thought someone so small could pack such a punch, but Galthus fell flat on his back when she made impact with him. She climbed onto his chest, slamming her feet into his arms and gripping his mandibles tightly in each hand. In such a compromising position, and with Nihlus towering behind her, Galthus didn’t dare move.

“Good work, Freckles. I didn’t think a human could take down a turian like that.”

“I could take a hundred turians if I wanted to.” Her voice was aggressive, the statement meant as a bit of vicious hyperbole, but as firmly as she held Galthus down, her eyes cool and collected despite the tension in her muscles, Nihlus genuinely believed she _could_ have taken on a hundred turians and won.

One mission down, and Nihlus was ready to admit he liked the little human. She might have been the only good decision the Council had ever made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An update on this, the holiest of weeks: turian week. Though the two are largely unrelated. My other fics have (so far) been updating on a weekly basis, but I don't think this one will update as frequently. I think I might even take an "ah, whatever" approach to updates on this, but I have written ahead, and it IS only 5 chapters, so it could end up weekly anyway. There will be a sequel/main story but I haven't started that yet. Anyway thank you so much for reading and for all the lovely comments people left on the first chapter! Also how about that accidental alliteration in the chapter title?


	3. Naked

_Six months after Spectre Status_

A stolen asari artifact on Sur’Kesh seemed like a job for the Salarian STG, if anyone had bothered to ask Shepard, but apparently she and Nihlus were the best possible people suited to such a task, because that was the errand the Council had sent them on.

They had spent the last six days in a sweltering jungle looking for the damn thing and found nothing but evidence that the thieves who had stolen the artifact from the Citadel archives had fallen prey to the jungle wildlife, as evidenced by the blood-stained broken pieces of cheap armor they found scattered across the ground on the fourth day. Nihlus had been tracking clues since, though half of them were scents and sounds Shepard wasn’t even physically capable of smelling or hearing.

She had spent the last six months working with the turian as her “mentor” and was just finally getting used to all of his numerous personality quirks. She now had his sleeping schedule down pat, which meant she knew when she could interrupt his sleep if he’d done something particularly irritating, knew when the bathroom would not risk being occupied for a shower, and knew when he would be out and about in their shared rec room if she was trying to avoid him for any reason.

Once she had gotten over his abrasive, flirtatious demeanor, she found that most of the time he was fairly tolerable to be around. Discrepant though their sleep schedules were, they often wound up eating around the same times; unintentionally at first, but at after a while Shepard had found she liked his company better than eating alone and made sure to schedule her meals around his. At first reluctant to get to know this unnerving turian, she eventually realized that he might be her Spectre partner for as long as the two of them were Spectres, so she may as well make an effort with him.

They had quickly found that they worked well together in the field. Nihlus’ cunning and knack for spinning stories made up for Shepard’s own inability to lie or do much in the way of recon; in turn, Shepard’s bull-headedness and impulsive strength complemented Nihlus’ typically more collected approach to firefights. Spending time together on the ship, getting to know one another better, had only made them work more cohesively during missions.

Unfortunately, Shepard was at the edge of her limits after six days in a hot, humid jungle. She was covered in mud and scratches, despite her armor; sweating, despite her temperature regulation suit; and in desperate need of a shower and a decent night’s rest. And they were doing all of this for some artifact that would only wind up gathering dust on a shelf in the Citadel archives once they recovered it.

“I’ve reapplied this spray ten times,” Shepard complained as she doused herself in a special mist meant to repel the native insects of Sur’Kesh. They were like mosquitos on steroids and they had been mercilessly assaulting her since they landed, finding every tiny gap in her armor through which they could access her skin. “I’m sick of these things!”

“It’s all that sweat you’re making.” Nihlus shrugged. “They haven't been bothering me. I only needed one spritz of the repellent.”

“I hate you so much.”

“No you don’t.”

“I reek over here. I need a bath. Look, I’ve had my share of extended field missions with the Alliance, but nothing in this kind of heat…without any water to bathe in. I’m this close to stripping naked and rolling in the mud.” She tugged at the collar of her suit.

“As much as I’d love to see that, there’s a lot of crevices I’m sure you don’t want mud in,” Nihlus said. He stopped and squatted down to examine some trampled leaves, then sniffed the air.

“I can’t believe you’re tracking this thing like a dog,” Shepard groaned.

“Excuse me for having better senses than you and knowing where to look. If it was just you running this mission, we’d be lost.” He stood up fully and continued walking.

“Are we not lost now? We’re six days-deep into this jungle. I have no earthly clue how we’d get back to where the Callisto dropped us, do you?”

“Good thing our omni-tools have homing beacons. Quit being so dramatic.”

“ _I’m_ dramatic?” She laughed. “That’s pretty rich coming from you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He folded his arms.

“It means you’re the single most dramatic person I’ve ever met. Remember last week when you nearly had a mental breakdown because you thought you’d run out of paint for your colony markings? If that wasn’t dramatic, I don’t know what is.”

“I’m losing the scent up here.” He ignored her. “It trails from past those bushes, but it’s fading.” He pressed forward quickly and Shepard followed him, hoping they might finally be close to finding the artifact so she could get back to the Callisto and bathe.

A cluster of overgrown bushes blocked the path, so Nihlus began hacking away at them with his omni-tool. Shepard stood behind him with her arms crossed, annoyed and obstinate, refusing to help in any meaningful fashion. When he had cut away at the bushes sufficiently, he tossed aside the loose branches and stepped through, Shepard following close behind.

The sight awaiting them behind the bushes made Shepard suck her cheeks in. She let out a little excited yelp and Nihlus stared at her.

The path had led them to a gorgeous lake at the base of a waterfall, crystalline liquid rushing from the hills and creating a mist at the bottom, several hundred yards away where the lake met the cliff-face. The water was bright blue, clear nearly to the bottom; Shepard knelt down and removed a glove to dip a hand in the lake, pleased with how cool and inviting it felt.

“I guess we know why the trail ended,” Nihlus sighed. “Someone took the artifact through the water. Or it’s _in_ the water.” He shrugged. “May as well make the most of this I suppose.” He began unlatching the armor around his chest.

“What are you doing?” Shepard demanded, alarmed.

“What does it look like? I’m getting naked and rinsing off. I’m surprised you aren’t already doing the same for as much as you’ve complained about being filthy since we landed.” He continued removing his armor as he spoke.

“Well, yeah, the water’s enticing, but…” She was annoyed at the warmth creeping up her neck, independent from the climate in the jungle.

“Afraid to get naked in front of me, Freckles?” He laughed. “Another annoyingly human trait. Turians aren’t embarrassed about nudity. Then again, we don’t have all of our parts on full display all of the time.”

She had to admit, she was intensely curious about what a turian body looked like naked. She had only ever seen one in hand-drawn clinical diagrams from military training. The closest she had come to seeing the real thing was when Nihlus exercised with his arms bared. She _knew_ he would have scales dotting his skin, and plating covering his forearms, yet it had still surprised her; she could only imagine what lay beneath the rest of his clothing.

“On full display…?” Shepard cocked her head.

Nihlus had finished removing his armor and proceeded to pull off his undersuit until he was standing before her completely naked.

There was absolutely nothing between his legs and she couldn’t help but stare in shock.

 _Nothing_ was too strong of a word, perhaps. He had overlapping metallic plates covering his pelvis, but he was otherwise bare.

“Where’s your cock?” Shepard blurted, immediately clapping her hands over her mouth in embarrassment.

Was it possible turians didn’t _have_ that part? He was certainly doing _something_ with the men and women he’d paraded through the Callisto whenever they returned to the Citadel for mission briefings; she could hear them in his cabin sometimes. She should have been embarrassed at how hard she was staring at his crotch, but she couldn’t take her eyes away from the foreignness, removing her gaze only briefly to take in the thick plating on his chest, curving in a convex slope to meet at the center of his keel bone.

Nihlus only laughed and sat down in the shallow end of the lake, letting the water wash over the lower half of his body. “If you really want me to show it to you, I can. Otherwise it’s considered polite to keep it behind your plates and in your sheath if sex acts aren’t on the table.”

Shepard blinked at him and said nothing.

“Well, you’ve clearly never been with a turian.” He shook his head. “Why don’t you just get undressed and get in the water? What am I going to do? We’re partners now, you know. I’m sure I’ll see you naked eventually.”

In the Alliance, there had never been room for modesty. She’d been naked in front of plenty of fellow marines for any number of reasons and never thought twice about it. She _shouldn’t_ have thought twice about it with Nihlus, but for some reason the idea of him knowing what she looked like naked felt different.

Ultimately, she decided she was too smelly and sweaty to care any longer, and with that, she began removing her armor and clothing piece by piece.

If she thought she had been hot before, removing her temperature regulation suit turned the heat up by several degrees. She stood at the edge of the lake for a single second, stark naked, before she jumped into the water, the cold shocking her momentarily.

When she rose up out of the water, she left only her neck and face exposed, though she was well aware Nihlus could still see her body, distorted by the waves and ripples, through the crystal-clear water.

“Do all spotty humans have as many freckles as you?” Nihlus asked, head cocked. “You were fast, but I still saw them.”

“Depends on the human,” Shepard said, struggling to keep her cheeks from flushing at the implication.

Nihlus reclined in the mud, letting the water lap over his legs. It rose as far as his stomach, but he wouldn’t venture any deeper or any further from the shore.

“It does feel nice to stop and cool off.” He closed his eyes.

Shepard treaded water and stared at him while he wasn’t looking, finally taking in the full length of his naked body.

Looking at him, it was easy to see why humans had been terrified of turians at first, and why some still were. His body was long, lithe, and muscular: built to hunt and kill. Freckle-like metallic scales dotted the insides of his thighs, his legs corded with thick, taut muscle. Two bony spurs jutted from the sides of his calves; turian leg spurs had always seemed like a weakness to Shepard, a leverage point that a swift kick could break, but seeing the strength of the attachment of the plated bone to his powerful calf muscles, she realized there was no way the appendages would break so easily. His toes ended in sharp talons, evidence of what his fingers could have looked like if he didn’t file those talons down into blunt edges as a common courtesy.

She found her eyes straying back to the overlapping plates between his legs, wondering _what_ a turian penis would possibly look like. How did it fit behind the plates? How did he use the bathroom? She had so many questions, all of which she knew were inappropriate. She had _seen_ alien genitalia before, knew it could be… _different_ … from a human’s, though the basic layout was always the same, but turians seemed like an entirely different beast.

She wished she hadn’t started thinking about what Nihlus’ cock looked like.

His eyes snapped open and she looked away from him abruptly, but not quickly enough for her staring to escape his notice. His mandibles flicked into a grin.

“Were you staring at me, Freckles?”

She sunk deeper into the water until it came up to her chin. “I’ve never seen a naked turian.” She admitted.

“Lucky for you, your first time is with as beautiful a specimen as this.” He gestured to his body languidly.

She rolled her eyes. “I feel _so blessed_.”

“Well, I’ve seen plenty of naked humans, so you don’t need to cover yourself up on my account.”

“You’ve slept with humans?” She was intensely curious, and after six months of living in close quarters with him, at least not embarrassed to ask him that simple of a question. Whenever they docked at the Citadel, it was typically other turians he brought onto the ship, though asari and drell had made appearances. She couldn’t recall having ever seen him bring a human though.

“Plenty.” He shrugged. “They can be fun, but very soft. Easy to rip their flesh if you’re too rough with your teeth or claws.” He sat up slightly, boring holes into her with his eyes, which made her temperature rise against her will. “I’ve been with lots of human women who’ve never been with a turian before. I usually leave them satisfied.” He unfurled his tongue from his mouth, bright blue and far longer than Shepard had expected.

Her face grew so warm she swore steam was rising up from around her. She couldn’t look away from it, or remove the implication of how he used it that he had planted in her head; it was the longest tongue she’d ever seen.

With a content smirk, he drew his tongue back up into his mouth and chuckled. “Sorry, am I making you uncomfortable, Freckles? You’re almost as red as I am now.”

Shepard could not formulate a witty reply. She had started thinking about his cock again.

It had _obviously_ been too long since she’d had sex; so long that she was genuinely considering the sexual appeal of this obnoxious turian.

“This might be the first time you haven’t had something sarcastic to say to my come-ons.” Nihlus sat up completely, the water now only covering his legs partially. “Do you want to see it, Freckles? I’ll show you mine, you show me yours.”

“Are you projecting?” She asked, still keeping her body beneath the water. “If you want to see me that badly, you don’t have to get your cock out, Red. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“Is that why you’ve been submerged for the past five minutes?”

She supposed he was right: he would see her naked eventually through some means or another, just as her fellow marines had. And it wasn’t as though she was embarrassed by her body; in fact, she knew her toned muscles and small, perky breasts could even be considered attractive.

Maybe that was what concerned her.

She conceded though, allowing her body to drift up until she was floating on her back, breasts visible above the water. For a moment, she closed her eyes and let herself float across the surface of the water without a thought. Regardless of what Nihlus thought about her, or whether he really _did_ want to see her naked, it felt good to release some of her inhibitions. What was really the worst that could happen?

When she opened her eyes, Nihlus was watching her, but the look in his eyes was not the greedy, lustful look she had expected given his propensity for flirtation and the prolific sexual appetite he’d shown in their six months working together. Instead, he watched with curiosity, his eyes darting up and down her body with interest: more like she was a specimen to be studied than an object of desire.

“Are you staring at me, Red?” She echoed his words.

“Your whole body is covered in them.” His eyes continued roving wildly back and forth.

“My freckles?” She glanced down at herself. “Not _all_ of my body.”

“What are they exactly?” He leaned forward.

She pressed a finger into a freckle on her stomach. “I don’t know. Extra melanin, I guess. You get them wherever the sun touches you.”

“My translator can’t parse that word.”

She had never seen him so intensely curious about something. “What word? Melanin? It’s…uh…it’s what makes human skin different colors. I don’t have very much of it.” She held up a pale arm. “Redheads are usually pale. With a lot of freckles. If you have more melanin, then your skin is darker. It’s just a natural variation. Like your red plating. I mean, I’m no biologist…but I’d imagine it’s similar.”

He slid further into the water, standing and stepping forward until it reached his waist. There, he stopped and refused to move any further, though he craned his neck to look at her. For a moment, she felt embarrassed, but it passed into a different feeling.

She pushed herself away from him with a flick of her arm through the water, floating toward the waterfall. He took one more step into the water, mandibles twitching. If Shepard didn’t know better, she would have though he looked _nervous_. He usually moved so steadily and gracefully on those long legs of his, but now his steps were hesitant and uncertain.

“Why don’t you come swim, Red?”

He fixed her with a hard stare. “Turians can’t swim.”

“What?” She stopped floating and treaded water so she could get a better look at him. “Are you kidding me?”

Over the past six months, she had come to understand a lot of turian facial expressions she had once never recognized, even come to parse out what mood different movements of Nihlus’ mandibles were meant to express. She’d never seen him with the expression he wore now, mandibles flared and brow ridge lowered, but she was almost certain he was _embarrassed_.

“We’re too dense,” he explained. “All the metal in our carapace…too much weight for our body. We can’t float. Can’t even keep ourselves above water. I’d drown.”

Shepard burst out laughing. “Oh my _God_! All this time turians have been going on and on about how _weak_ humans are. How could we _ever_ become the apex predators on our planet? And you guys can’t even _swim_? This is too good.”

Nihlus folded his arms moodily. “What a _human_ reaction.”

“You’re telling me that all we had to do to keep the turians off our backs was go sit in the ocean? Man, if we had known that, Shanxi might have gone differently.”

He rolled his eyes and stepped back, sitting down near the shore and glaring at her. She swam closer to the shore and then laid herself out in shallows, leaving a few inches of space between them. He made no attempt to hide his gaze as he examined her body once again.

“Hey, Red?”

“Yes, Freckles?” He reclined once more, hesitantly looking away from her to stare out at the waterfall across the lake.

“How do turians even kiss with those rigid lips?”

He laughed. “I can show you sometime, if you’d like.”

She shook her head and closed her eyes. “We’ll see.”

* * *

 

While it wasn’t necessarily a sign of trust that Shepard had gotten naked in front of Nihlus, he couldn’t help but think that she _had_ grown to trust him somewhat if she was willing to lie on the shore next to him, stark naked, with her eyes closed.

Her body was as taut and muscular as he’d hoped, but that hadn’t been what kept his eyes glued to her. He was _fascinated_ by the freckles coating her skin nearly from head to toe; he had never felt such an extreme compulsion to touch someone, acutely aware that it was neither appropriate nor invited.

Maybe it was best to stick to her human notions of sex, ones where two people couldn’t possibly derive pleasure from one another without complicating things. Personally, Nihlus refused to believe that sex complicated _anything_ ; it was just shared passion, nothing else. What truly complicated matters between two people was _love_ and, while Nihlus had come to trust Shepard as a partner in the field of battle in the last six months, love was certainly far from his mind. _Lust_ was the primary emotion driving him at that moment.

Then again, lust is what had led him into Saren’s arms, and that had not ended pleasantly. _Love_ had gotten in the way with Saren.

He considered that particular crater in his heart while he tried to avoid staring too hard at Shepard. The solution, of course, was simple: they needed to return to the Citadel after this mission and he needed to go out and sleep with someone. It had been several weeks and he was letting his sex drive overpower his rational thinking.

“That’s an irritable look if I’ve ever seen one,” Shepard interrupted his thoughts.

His face had been set in a grimace without realizing. He relaxed his mandibles and sunk a little deeper into the mud. “Just lost in thought. Are we going to lie around here all day, then?” He turned and stared at her once more, feeling a bit guilty for how long his eyes lingered on the curve of her hips.

“You said you lost the trail. What are we supposed to do?” She shrugged. “I like laying in this cold water a hell of a lot better than sweating my ass off in this jungle. Why the hell do the salarians like it here so much?”

“Well, it is their home planet. You’d probably _hate_ Palaven. Honestly, I’m not all that partial to it myself. You grow up on a space station and a hot irradiated planet just fails to have appeal.”

“It has to be pretty, though,” She said. “Prettier than a sterile space station.”

“It’s fine.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t Earth have jungles?”

“Sure, but I grew up in a city. Up north. Nowhere near jungles.”

Nihlus knew nothing about Earth and had never visited it before. He had no clue what the implication of ‘up north’ was, but he assumed it was a cooler climate than more southern locales on Earth.

“How badly do you think the Council will react if we tell them we couldn’t find the artifact?” He asked.

“It depends. Am I breaking the news or are you? Because they hate me, but they _love_ you.”

He snorted. “No they don’t.”

“Be honest, Red, you’ve slept with all of them, haven’t you?” She looked sideways at him.

“Sparatus _wishes_ ,” he laughed. “I’m good at my job, that’s why they like me. And they don’t _not_ like you, they’re just more suspicious because you’re a human. But it’s fine, you’ve got me to vouch for you.” He flicked her arm with a blunt talon and she jumped.

Every time she looked at him, her eyes strayed to his pelvic plates. He _knew_ she was intensely curious about his body, it was only too bad she wasn’t willing to let him show her how it worked at peak performance.

The _heat_ in that jungle was not helping anything. His blood was running hot and the only thing keeping him from making a real, genuine pass at Shepard was the fact that there was no way he was going to have sex in such an unsanitary place. That, and he really didn’t want her to be uncomfortable with him. Flirtatious jokes were one thing, but real pursuit was another.

For nearly an hour they lay in the shallows of the lake discussing the mission and their home worlds and how eager they were to return to the Callisto. Eventually, they stood up and rinsed the mud from their backs, drying as much as the humid air would allow them to before they pulled their clothes and armor back on.

“What do you think happened to the artifact?” Shepard asked, latching her breastplate into place.

“I think whatever animal tore apart the thieves probably destroyed it and trampled it through half of the jungle. I understand priceless pieces of history, but what’s one more vase with some hieroglyphs on it?” Nihlus sighed and brought up his omni-tool to call the Callisto to their position.

“I’m going to take the longest, hottest shower when we get back to the ship.”

“Now that we’ve seen each other naked, maybe we could share the shower.” Nihlus raised his brow plate.

“Cute, but I still didn’t see your junk.”

“My… _junk_?” His mandibles twitched.

“Yeah. Your bits. You know, your cock.” She shrugged.

“Hey, I offered.”

She laughed. “Eh, who wants to see a floppy turian dick anyway?”

“Well, I don’t _have_ to show it to you while it’s limp.” He was intensely frustrated by the amount of armor they were now both wearing, and doubly frustrated with the knowledge that the only way to resolve this itching in his plates would be alone in his cabin, with his hand.

“You _really_ think you could handle me, don’t you, Red?”

“You’re severely underestimating me here, Freckles.”

“What would you even do if I said yes? Huh?” She took a step closer to him. “You just flirt relentlessly with everyone, but how often do you even mean it?” She wasn’t wrong, but he had always meant it with her. He liked nearly anyone who was strong and confident, especially when they could dish as much as they could take.

“I keep telling you, my cabin door is always unlocked.” He replied coolly.

“I don’t think you’d actually know what to do if I told you I wanted you.”

“Trust me, Freckles, I’d know _exactly_ what to do.” He flicked his mandibles. “You ever get an itch to find out what it’s like to be with a turian, your best bet would be me. I guarantee half the whelps you’d find at a bar on the Citadel wouldn’t even know where to find your clitoris.”

“Well, lucky for all of us, I’ve never had an overwhelming desire to be with a turian.”

“ _Yet_.” He grinned.

“You don’t worry even one bit about crossing that line with someone who’s supposed to be your work partner?” She folded her arms.

“I’ve done it before. Sex is sex.”

“Sure if you’re fucking a stranger in a bar. I think it becomes a little more emotionally complicated when it’s with someone you know or trust.”

He wanted to rebuke that claim, but Saren came to mind immediately. Saren had been _his_ mentor and he had admired him from the start for his uncompromising diligence. He’d never intended for things to happen the way they did, had told himself it was a purely physical matter, separate from his admiration, but he had been wrong. What else had paved the way for their relationship besides that first time they crossed the line together? It _wasn’t_ sex with a stranger, it was sex with someone he trusted, someone he worked alongside, someone he would have given his life for.

 _Fuck_ it hurt to think about.

He hadn’t spoken to Saren in over a year, but the pain still felt fresh. Why had he cast him aside? Saren had been the one to request Nihlus’ transfer, citing an ‘irreconcilable difference’. It had blindsided him completely and when he asked for an explanation, Saren had only claimed they were too different, and that Nihlus was too immature.

Would the same thing happen to Shepard if he crossed that line?

No. That was love, not sex. Saren had been sex with love, Shepard would just be loveless sex. Sex, love, turians could always piece them apart, couldn’t they?

He felt anger welling inside of him at the memory of Saren and he looked away from Shepard.

“Red?” Shepard’s voice was surprisingly soft. “Did I hit a nerve or say something I shouldn’t…? Nihlus?”

She so rarely called him by his actual name that it jarred him. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I…it just made me think of someone.”

“I’m sorry.” She placed a gentle hand on his arm.

He stared at her hand before he met her gaze. Their eyes locked and for a moment, he couldn’t look away from her. Perhaps there was something more than just pure sexual desire driving this impulse. Undoubtedly, that had been all it was when they first met, but in the last six months, they had pulled each other out of some pretty hairy situations. He knew, unquestioningly, that she would fight until she was bloodied and broken to keep him safe, she had demonstrated her trust time and time again on missions.

At no point was he consciously aware of his hand slipping around her waist, but he suddenly found it there; she didn’t remove her gaze from his for even a second to acknowledge it.

“Hey, Red?” Her breath was heavy.

“Yes, Freckles?”

One of her hands tentatively lifted to brush the very edge of his mandible. “How do turians even kiss with those rigid lips?”

He was about to reply when the sound of an approaching aircraft interrupted them. The Callisto descended from above, hovering above the trees, unable to land in the thick jungle with no clearing large enough to accommodate it.

Nihlus let go of Shepard and stepped away from her as the two of them awaited the transport shuttle.

When they returned to the ship, they spent nearly thirty minutes on the line with the Council explaining what had likely happened to the artifact, and that six days in the jungle had turned up no results. The councilors were annoyed, as expected, but took the news better than Nihlus would have hoped.

After the meeting, they each showered, separately, then prepared their meals in silence, neither one of them addressing whatever it was that had occurred between them. Personally, Nihlus would have preferred to write it off as sexual tension and nothing more, but he knew there was _something_ else at play there. Whatever Shepard thought about it, she was tight lipped.

Instead of discussing the moment they had shared, once they finished eating, Nihlus almost went to sleep with barely more than a ‘good sleep, Freckles’, but something made him hesitate in the doorway.

Shepard sat on the couch in the rec room with a datapad in her lap and he watched her for a moment before he spoke.

“Freckles?”

She looked up. “Yeah?”

“Have you ever heard of Saren Arterius?”

She set the datapad down and stared at him. “He’s a Spectre, isn’t he?”

Other Spectres and the Council were well aware of Nihlus’ relationship with Saren, but it wasn’t exactly galactic news, and he wouldn’t have expected Shepard to know anything about Saren beyond what everyone knew: he was a Spectre. Few people still in Nihlus’ life knew what Saren had meant to him; none of the crew knew, and friends were fleeting with his lifestyle.

He took a step closer to the couch. “He was my mentor.”

“You were close?” Shepard hazarded a guess.

“Very.” He sat on the edge of the couch and stared at his hands. “I don’t…I’m not sure why I’m telling you this.”

“Nihlus.” Her voice was firm. “I’m listening.”

And so he told her about his past with Saren. It was the first time he had ever spoken about it out loud since their sudden split, and it hurt to dig open a still healing wound, but he knew that he wanted to tell her. When she reacted with nothing but compassion, he knew it had been a necessary step. And still a line crossed, if not the one he’d expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess I lied about not updating weekly cause I finished writing all the chapters for this! The corresponding longfic/sequel might be a bit more spread out if/when I get to starting it. Thanks for reading and I'm glad people are enjoying it! It's really fun to write their dynamic and I'm loving writing Nihlus especially.


	4. Without Words

_Eighteen months after Spectre Status_

The moment of tension Shepard and Nihlus shared on Sur’Kesh had not been the last, though Shepard had hoped it would be. Nihlus was a flirt, that much had been evident from day one, and while she had always known he was serious about sleeping together, she had never given it any thought; he was great at flirting in a way that made her feel good without making her uncomfortable, so she’d never felt bad about casually rebuffing his advances.

Until Sur’Kesh.

Whatever they had shared after stripping naked in front of each other, it had left her thinking about him in a new light. His admission of his past relationship with his mentor, Saren, was also a rare moment of raw sincerity from him that she appreciated.

At first, it was curiosity that drove her interest. She had never seen a naked turian before Nihlus, and she was almost desperate to know what he looked like beneath the metallic plating on his pelvis. That interest had led her to an embarrassing moment alone in her cabin, searching the extranet for explicit pictures and vids.

The vids had been _enlightening_ , to say the least.

She had only watched them out of a morbid fascination initially, but once she knew what a turian looked like beneath his plates, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. She would pass Nihlus in their shared space on the Callisto and wonder if his cock was as big and as blue as the ones on the vids, then she would get annoyed with herself for thinking about Nihlus’ cock at all.

More than once, the thought of him crossed her mind with her hand between her legs, but the worst had been when she’d nearly said his name at the peak of her orgasm.

 _That_ had been when she realized, perhaps, she was not in control of the situation, or her feelings.

In the Alliance, there had been strict rules against fraternization. She had certainly been interested in a fellow marine once or twice, but never pursued the matter; it wasn’t worth the potential repercussions. No such rules existed as a Spectre; in fact, few rules existed at all. Everything was up to her own will power, which faded rapidly with each passing month.

More than once on their trips back to the Citadel she had brought back an asari or another human to spend the night with, but it wasn’t scratching the itch she had, and it often left her _more_ desperate than she’d been before the encounter.

Her work with Nihlus on missions wasn’t helping either. They worked so damn well together it was almost annoying. Their individual approaches to battle complemented each other perfectly, and Nihlus _always_ had her back. For as much sarcasm as they flung at each other, when it came down to the line and things got deadly serious, they always got each other through to the other side. She’d never worked with a single marine in all her years in the Alliance that she meshed with as well as Nihlus.

It would have been easier to ignore her physical interest in him if she didn’t also trust him and like his company. She never thought she’d find _anything_ about a turian attractive.

The Council’s interest in improving Turian-Human relations was working better than she ever would have guessed.

Although Shepard and Nihlus often spent shore leave apart to pursue their own interests, during travel time to different mission locales, they spent most of their time together in the rec room, rarely making an appearance on the crew deck to socialize with the others.

It was on the couch in the rec room that Shepard found herself slightly tipsy with Nihlus one evening, halfway through a trip to Digeris, eighteen months into their strange partnership. They had been sharing a bottle of dual-chirality tequila, pouring it into little cups with lime juice; the ratio of juice to tequila had been dwindling steadily.

“All right. All right. I know you’ve never been with a turian,” Nihlus said. “But what about other aliens?”

“Well, everyone’s been with an asari.” She shrugged.

“Everyone, huh?” He raised his brow plate. “Is that it?”

“I, uh…I almost went home with a drell once, but it didn’t happen. What about you?” She nudged him with her shoulder. “Is there an alien you _haven’t_ been with?”

He pretended to contemplate the question for several seconds, scratching his chin. “Well, I’ve never had the nerve to fuck a volus.”

“Oh, the height difference…” Shepard burst out laughing. “Can you imagine?” She looked at him sideways. “What about a hanar?”

“Hanar…” He flicked his mandibles. “Well, their tentacles are very dexterous.”

“You seriously fucked a _hanar_ , Red?”

“That’s a strong word for what we did. It was enjoyable at any rate.” He grinned. “I can’t believe the only alien you’ve been with is an asari. How _bland_.”

“Yeah, well, until you I’d never met a turian I could stand to be around. And salarians don’t really do it for me.” She shrugged.

He leaned slightly closer to her. “Are you saying turians _do_ do it for you?”

She felt her cheeks flush and she looked with sudden interest into her cup. “I’m not saying _anything_. Just that salarians _don’t_.”

“You know, Freckles, the walls on this ship are thinner than you think.” He grabbed her hand and spread her fingers out, tracing his talon across her upturned palm. “I’ve heard some of the vids you’ve been watching.”

She shivered at his touch, though he had touched her plenty in the last year, considering how handsy he was in general.

“Eavesdropping, probably.” She tried to sound calm as she replied, but her heart was pounding.

“I’m just hurt.” He turned her hand over. His hand was so _large_ compared to hers, his two fingers rough and leathery against her softer, smaller digits. “I’ve told you time and time again if you want to know what a turian’s like, my door’s open. Instead, you’re watching _vids_. Hardly the most accurate portrayal.”

She turned her face to his. “Projecting again, Red? I know how badly you want to touch me.”

He let his face hover close to hers, any closer and he would have been touching her. His free hand ghosted down her neck and it made her hair stand on end.

“Are you finally going to let me? With a little alcohol in your system? Inhibitions lowered and all that…” His eyes darted to her lips and his mandibles twitched.

In such close proximity, she was keenly aware that he was a predator, honed by millions of years of evolution. The look in his eyes was full of a hunger she’d never seen before; _his_ inhibitions were lowered too.

“You wouldn’t know what to do with me.” She willed herself to move away from him, but barely managed to put an inch between them.

“Is that a challenge, Freckles?”

 _Why_ did she want him so badly in that moment? It probably didn’t help that she hadn’t had sex in three months and had been relegated to using her hand while thinking about turians…while thinking about Nihlus. It had turned her minor little crush into a Pavlovian response.

She stared at him, scanning his alien face: the mandibles jutting from the sides of his face, the sharp teeth that should have been more threatening than they were, those rigid lips. She didn’t have to contemplate if he could actually kiss her, she had watched too many vids by that point. The entire time she stared, he hovered close without ever touching her, except for his warm grip on her hand.

Her breath came heavy. She put another inch between them and tried to calm her racing heartbeat.

“Jokes aside, we really shouldn’t.” She hated herself for saying it. “We share such close quarters and…” Her head was slightly cloudy from the alcohol she’d consumed and she was amazed she was making an argument at all.

“ _Shepard_.” Nihlus brushed his nose against her cheek and it sent a jolt of electricity running through her body. He almost never called her by her name. It was _always_ ‘Freckles’; ‘Shepard’ was reserved for moments when he was being particularly serious, ‘Jane’ was when he got angry with her.

One of his hands grabbed the other side of her face as he nuzzled her, his subharmonics rumbling. Suddenly, his lips were on her neck and she was burning up.

“Nihlus…” She felt his tongue brush against her skin.

Fuck it. She was only human, after all, and she desperately _needed_ to know what he felt like.

She turned her cheek and he raised his face to meet hers immediately, their lips coming together like magnets. His lips weren’t as rough as she’d imagined, though they certainly felt foreign. They were more flexible and giving against her own than she would have thought; with an unusual, smooth texture.

As soon as their lips came together, his hands gripped her arms tightly, then one snaked up into her hair, gripping it firmly at the base of her skull. She mirrored his movement, circling her arm around his neck to feel up the overlapping plating running up his neck. The plating ended just beneath his fringe, leaving the tiniest gap of soft, leathery skin. She stroked her fingers against this spot and he moaned into her mouth; that was cheating, though, she’d seen that move in the vids.

His tongue snaked into her mouth, pulsing against hers; she shouldn’t have been surprised that he tasted slightly metallic, but she still was. His kisses were so urgent and greedy it made her head spin. All the while, she couldn’t stop thinking about what his cock might look like.

She wasn’t quite aware of him lowering her onto her back until he was suddenly on top of her, holding his weight to one side as he moved his lips back to her neck, nipping delicately at the soft skin of her throat with those dangerous teeth of his.

“Red…oh God…what are we doing?” She said even as she stroked the back of his neck and clutched at his cowl.

“I need to taste you.” He yanked her shirt up over her head.

She wished she was wearing something besides the ratty comfort clothing she wore around the ship, but on the bright side, she didn’t have a bra on beneath the tank top he had removed.

He kissed down her chest, tracing his tongue around each of her nipples before kissing down her stomach to the line of her shorts. He dipped his finger against her belly-button with a grin.

“Such a quaint human feature.”

His finger moved, pressing into one of her freckles, then another. He followed his finger with his mouth, pecking tender little kisses across the numerous freckles dotting her skin. As he kissed her, his talons hooked into the band of her shorts and yanked them from her legs, leaving nothing but her underwear.

Without warning, he dragged his tongue between her legs, the feeling muted by the fabric of her underwear. She arched her back and let out an involuntary moan. She had been so desperate to see what his cock looked like that she’d completely forgotten how long and dexterous that tongue of his was.

“Does everything match down here, Freckles?” He flicked his mandibles and grabbed the edge of her underwear. “Are you red all over?”

“Why don’t you find out?” She was all for foreplay, but they were well past the point of no return and had been since Nihlus pressed his lips against her neck.

Wasting no more time, he pulled the underwear down her legs and tossed it to the side. One hand came up to touch the hair between her legs.

“Maybe I should start calling _you_ ‘Red’,” he suggested.

“Maybe you should stop talking.” She groaned impatiently.

“Hm, never thought I’d have you begging for me, Freckles.” He kissed the inside of her thigh.

“Don’t be such a fucking tease, and I won’t have to beg.”

Without another word, he kissed his way between her thighs, bracing her legs atop his shoulders. He slid his fingers between her legs to part her lips, dipping his head down and sliding his tongue across her clit. The hand not occupied between her legs gripped her thigh tightly, talons digging into her flesh.

She didn’t want to think about how long it had been since anyone had gone down on her; longer than the three months it had been since she’d had sex. No tongue had ever felt quite this good, though. It was long and thick and he could control it with remarkable precision, tracing shapes against her clit, sliding down inside of her and back out again.

If she had known this is what she’d been missing, she would have taken him up on his offers far sooner.

Subconsciously, her hands moved to grip his fringe, clasping tightly around it as his head moved between her legs.

“Red… _Red…oh God_ …”

He slid a finger inside of her while his tongue moved and it sent a shock of pleasure up her spine. All she could think about was the pressure of his tongue against her; she arched her back and rolled her hips to meet the pressure, to meet the tiny little thrusts of his finger. He knew exactly what he was doing and she was eternally thankful for it.

Her orgasm hit her like a train, without as much buildup as she had grown used to: an explosion of white-hot pleasure behind her eyes, coursing through her veins, running from head to toe and forcing unbidden, lusty moans from her throat. She was vaguely aware of a string of words leaving her mouth, it might have been nonsensical babbling, or it might have been his name; she couldn’t even say _which_ of his names she had moaned.

With a self-satisfied chirp from his subharmonics, he removed his head from between her legs and rested it on her stomach. She lay boneless on the couch, covered in a thin sheen of sweat, eyes half open.

“That wasn’t even the main event.” He sounded slightly disappointed. “Don’t fall asleep on me, Freckles. I’m out of my sheath over here.”

She brushed a hand against his mandible weakly. “Just…give me a minute.”

“Glad I made an impression.” He stood up and began to undress as she lay there watching him in a haze of pleasure.

Once he had removed his shirt, he undid the clasps on his pants and held them at his waist. She stared, harder than she probably should have, eager to know what he looked like beneath that plating of his.

He stepped out of his pants and Shepard was able to take him in fully. She had been _expecting_ something distinctly alien, had seen the dark blue color of the turians in the vids, but Nihlus was not blue; the significantly sized erection between his legs was a deep shade of purple, and glistening with a clear lubricant.

“It’s…purple.” Shepard sat up.

He glanced down at himself. “Yes?”

She blinked slowly. “The ones in the vids were blue.”

“Hm.” He took a seat next to her on the couch and brushed his hand along the side of her thigh. “And did the turians in the vids have grey plating? Didn’t watch any of the ones with red plates like me, did you?”

She couldn’t take her eyes off of his cock. It was the biggest she had ever seen in person, certainly bigger than anyone she’d ever been with, though considering Nihlus’ overall size, he was quite proportionate.

It was _so purple_.

“Freckles?”

Her eyes snapped up to meet his. “I’m sorry I…it’s…it’s very big.”

He leaned in close to her and kissed her gently. “We can go slow.”

“Can I…?” She held her hand out tentatively.

This elicited a laugh from him. “Of course you can.”

Hesitantly, she wrapped her hand around the base of his cock. He shuddered beneath her touch and watched her intently as she moved her hand experimentally up and down, feeling the contours of him. His cock was slightly tapered so that it was thicker at the base than the head; she couldn’t fit her hand all the way around him at the base. It made a slick sound as she moved, thanks to the natural lubricant coating him.

He let out a soft moan and his eyes fluttered shut. “I always was partial to human hands,” he sighed. “So soft and so many fingers.”

She was genuinely concerned he wouldn’t actually _fit_ inside of her, but she was sure as hell willing to find out.

Removing her hand from around his cock, she climbed onto his lap, straddling him and bringing her lips against his neck with a gentle kiss. He leaned his head back to expose more of his skin to her and she took it between her teeth, nipping hard against the leathery skin.

From deep within his chest, his subharmonics rumbled as a low growl escaped his throat. He gripped her thighs and guided her toward his cock, talons dimpling into her flesh. Reluctantly, he removed one hand from her skin to guide himself inside of her, sliding her slowly down onto him.

Every inch he sunk deeper into her stretched her a little more until she was sure she couldn’t take him any deeper, hovering on the very precipice of pain and pleasure. He was _so big_ , but he felt _so good_.

She inhaled sharply and gripped his neck. “ _Fuck, Red_.”

He brushed his nose against her cheek. “Are you okay?”

It took her a moment to reply, completely frozen with him inside of her, trying to adjust to the size of him. “Yeah, just…give me a second,” she breathed.

“Just tell me when you’re ready.”

One hand gripped his neck while the other gripped his shoulder, her cheek brushing against his. For several seconds she sat completely still, legs splayed around his hips, in slight disbelief that she had been able to take all of him.

Once she had adjusted, she rolled her hips up, pulling off of him slightly before sliding back down. He gripped her bottom and helped to move her up and down, her clit gliding against his pelvis as she grinded against him.

“God…” The word left her mouth in a half moan, half whimper. “Nihlus…” She dragged her nails across the plating on the back of his neck and his subharmonics trilled pleasantly.

“ _Spirits_ , you’re so tight…” He gasped.

She increased her speed, lifting her hips and then shuddering back down as fast as she could manage given his not inconsiderable girth. He felt amazing, unlike anything she had ever felt before; perhaps his own natural lubricant helped things. The texture of the skin around his pelvis was incredible as she rubbed back and forth against it with each shift of her hips.

This time, she could feel the orgasm building. Every time her clit made contact with his skin as she settled down on him as far as she could, a little jolt of pleasure started between her legs and ran up her body like an electric current. Before she even knew what was happening, her face was buried against his neck and she was clawing at every inch of skin her hands could find, husky moans issuing from her throat as she came closer and closer to her peak.

“Red…oh… _fuck, Red…_ ”

The pleasure washed over her like a wave then, her muscles contracting around him in tight pulses, her nails scraping roughly against his plating, the movement of her hips slowing until she fell still against him, sweaty and euphoric.

She could barely think straight, could not will her body to keep moving, though he was still erect inside of her. She lay against him breathing heavily and, after a few seconds, he grabbed her thighs and rolled his hips beneath her, pumping in and out of her faster and faster, her breasts bouncing with each thrust.

His breath came in heavy grunts as he moved at a relentless pace; she gasped against his neck.

“Freckles…I’m…I’m…” His eyes squeezed shut.

“ _Red_.” She kissed his mandible.

A strangled moan left his throat as his pace faltered, he pumped desperately a few final times, spilling himself inside of her before falling limp against the couch. He let his head roll back, his hands sliding down her thighs to rest on her calves.

Neither of them spoke for nearly a full minute.

Shepard brushed her lips delicately against his neck before nuzzling against his skin. “Oh, Red.” She traced a hand across the plating on his keel bone. “I should have taken you up on your offer from the start.”

His mandibles twitched as he laughed. “I told you.”

* * *

 

_Two years post-Spectre status_

It never ceased to amaze Nihlus how peaceful Shepard looked when she was asleep. In battle, she was a machine, charging in unafraid and exiting the fray covered in sweat and blood, but in bed she looked as though she were incapable of harming anything or anyone

At first, she had drawn a hard and fast rule about sleeping in the same room. It was bad enough, she claimed, that they had fucked each other in the first place - though once they had done it she was eager to do it again – sleeping in the same room was something lovers did and they weren’t lovers, they were coworkers.

Coworkers who happened to be having sex.

The first time she stayed the night in his room had been after a particularly long and grueling mission, but firefights always seemed to make Shepard’s blood run hot. When they got back to the Callisto, they had barely stepped onto the elevator before they were undressing each other, stumbling into his bedroom to attack one another.

Afterward, they had both been so tired and euphoric that they’d fallen asleep against one another. She never said anything about it when they awoke, but after that she slept in his bed more often. Lately, he almost never slept alone.

Neither of them discussed it, but Nihlus didn’t mind. When he couldn’t sleep, he liked the sound of her steady breathing, and he would watch her sleeping, admiring the serene look on her face when she was in a state of total vulnerability. Sometimes she would wake while he watched her, and greet him with a sleepy smile, stretching and humming, her voice almost like a turian’s at that frequency.

For turians, sleeping next to someone was a sign of complete and absolute trust. Despite the numerous sexual partners Nihlus had been with in his lifetime, a number he couldn’t even tally, he could count on both hands the number of partners he had slept alongside, and still have fingers left over. Most of his sexual encounters usually ended with one party or the other going home when the fun was over; even recurrent partners never overstayed their welcome. He hadn’t actually slept next to someone since Saren.

He hated himself for considering how similar the trajectory of his relationship with Shepard was to that of his relationship with Saren. But their dynamic was different, and that had to count for something.

These thoughts were running through his mind as he watched Shepard sleeping late one night, the only light coming from the clock on his nightstand. The glow of the clock cast a blue hue across Shepard’s face, draping one side of it in shadows. He traced a talon softly against her collarbone and she stirred, eyelids fluttering open drowsily.

“Hm? What time is it?” She rolled onto her side and rubbed her face into the pillow.

“Late.”

“Not really an answer. Why aren’t you sleeping?” She yawned.

“Couldn’t turn my brain off.” It was a human expression, one he’d learned a long time ago during a mission with Saren, but he was partial to it. Turians didn’t have a good phrase for those racing thoughts that kept sleep from coming.

She was clearly not having the same problem, struggling to keep her eyes open as a frown played across her face. “What’s wrong?”

She brought one hand gently against his mandible. The tenderness of her touch often surprised him, considering how many times he had watched her single-handedly bring down a turian twice her size during a mission.

“Just…thinking about the past. About a lot of things.” He nestled his head next to hers and she leaned up and pressed her forehead to his: a display of extreme affection for turians, though he doubted she was aware. He appreciated the gesture regardless.

“You can tell me.” Her nose brushed softly along the bridge of his own. There was something she left unsaid, but he heard it anyway. ‘You can tell me anything’.

He was _supposed_ to be close with his Spectre partner, supposed to trust her with his life, but he knew this was not exactly what the Council had in mind when they had paired them together. It wasn’t exactly what _he_ had in mind either, even after the first time they had sex.

_Oh, Nihlus, you enormous fucking idiot._

“I was thinking about Saren. You’re tired, I don’t need to talk about it.”

“I’m awake.” Her slowly closing lids snapped open. “Tell me. I’m listening.”

“It’s nothing. I was just…thinking about how things progressed…how they ended.”

She stroked his fringe. “You miss him.”

Yes and no. There would always be a part of him that loved Saren, that missed him terribly, but he’d had time to heal now, more than two years. And in all that time, Saren had never reached out, never replied to a single message; eventually Nihlus had stopped sending them.

He _did_ miss Saren, but a new relationship was forcing a place for itself in his heart. He couldn’t voice that to her at all.

“It’s been a long time. Most days I don’t miss him too much.” He shrugged. “Other days are harder I guess. Shepard…?” It was one of those moments where ‘Freckles’ felt too light for the mood in the room.

“Hm?”

Whatever he was going to say, he lost the nerve. “I’m glad you’re my partner.”

It came as a surprise when she pulled him against her, bringing his head to rest against her shoulder while she stroked her fingers up and down his fringe.

“Me too, Nihlus.”

* * *

  _Two years, four months post Spectre-Status_

Firefights were common enough on any given Spectre mission, so common that Nihlus and Shepard barely had to think twice about where to take position once one began. They worked well together, moved fluidly, and while Shepard always took up a post closer to the enemy, Nihlus lingered behind, using his biotics to throw those he could and distract those he couldn’t.

It was during one of these firefights that Nihlus’ relationship with Shepard crossed yet another irreversible line. Camped out in the crumbling concrete of a Prothean ruin on the southern peak of Noveria, they had run into mercs out looking for the same archaeological documents left behind hundreds of years earlier: missing field notes from a dead salarian that could be vital to the Council for the information they contained on the Prothean extinction; they would also be worth plenty of money on the black market.

There was no question they would take down the mercs eventually, though they were heavily outnumbered. When the fight had started, there had been twenty of them, well-armed for mercs, some of them even carrying explosive grenades. In the last thirty minutes they had taken out all but three of them, and, backed into a corner, the mercs were growing desperate: they began lobbing grenades left and right. Those that landed narrowly missed, but Shepard was a good shot and she managed to hit most of them before they had a chance to land.

“Holding up, Freckles?” Nihlus called, ducking behind a fallen piece of concrete.

Shepard was stationed behind a pile of rocks that might have been part of the building when it had been completely intact. “Obviously.” He could _hear her_ roll her eyes as she reloaded her thermal clip and shot down another merc. “You?”

He was exhausted, and his already fairly limited biotic ability was beginning to fail. He usually didn’t push himself, switching to his guns the minute he felt his potential weakening. Considering how outnumbered they were and how efficient Shepard was with a gun, he had pushed himself too far in order to handle the situation. He would never admit to her how worn out he was, though it must have been evident at a glance.

“Like I’d let us get beat by a bunch of worthless mercs?” He replied, wiping away a stream of blue blood that was trickling from his nose.

“I dunno, Red, you sound kind of tired.”

Damn her. They’d spent far too much time together. She could read him without even looking back at him.

“Projecting?”

“Seriously.” She fell back and wiped some sweat from her forehead. “I can hear your subvocals. Don’t push yourself too hard. I need you alive to keep my dumb ass from getting killed.”

“Not arguing with that.”

The two remaining mercs were firing at them desperately, barely giving Shepard a moment to break out of cover and fire back. One of them threw a grenade, Shepard fired…and she missed. Nihlus wasn’t the only one faltering after thirty consecutive minutes under fire. She cursed and followed the arc of the grenade with her eyes.

“Red, I missed it!” She yelled, whirling around while Nihlus struggled to generate enough biotic energy to detonate the grenade mid-air.

He didn’t have the strength.

“ _Shit_ ,” he hissed.

“Nihlus!” Shepard ran for him. “You stupid fuck! I told you not to push yourself!”

Time seemed to slow to a halt as he watched the grenade heading straight for him. He didn’t have time to grab his gun, could barely shuffle backwards to try and escape the detonation. His shields were low, low enough that the grenade blast would easily eat through what was left of them and further still into his plating and skin.

Before he realized what had happened, Shepard had thrown herself in front of the grenade, stopping its approach well before it reached him. It slammed into her neck and exploded in a blinding flash, tearing through her shields.

_No._

His heart stopped.

When the blast had dissipated, he grabbed his gun and fired in a rage at the remaining mercs, letting their bullets clip what was left of his shields until they were dead, then he ran to Shepard’s side, afraid to see what had become of her.

She lay on the ground several feet away, blood pooling beneath her, the skin on the right side of her neck scorched and twisted. A piece of shrapnel had lodged itself in her cheek just below the eye and part of her chest armor had been blown to pieces.

He dropped down next to her and began applying medi-gel everywhere he could find a wound.

“Shepard… _Shepard!_ ” He felt delirious. Was she still breathing? What had she been thinking?

The medi-gel kept what remained of her blood inside of her, but she needed medical attention. Nihlus was barely aware of whatever crazed message he barked into his comm link. Whatever he had said, it boiled down to: need help NOW.

While he waited for the Callisto to reach his coordinates, he cradled Shepard’s motionless body against his chest, a desperate feeling welling up in his chest and bubbling out in a low keening note. He had hardly been aware of what he felt until he saw the grenade hit her.

Why had she so readily thrown herself in harm’s way for him? Dying for a partner was not exactly in a Spectre’s job description; he knew it went well beyond that.

The breath rushed out of him when Shepard’s eyelids fluttered.

“Red…” Her voice was strangled.

“Shh. Help’s coming. You’re going to be okay.”

She lifted an arm weakly and brushed it against the edge of his mandible. “I’m…”

“Don’t strain yourself, Freckles.” His mandibles twitched at her touch.

Every movement was clearly a struggle for her. She shifted against him. “I’m…going…to kill you…”

He laughed then and stroked her hair. “Kind of stupid to jump in front of a grenade to save me just to kill me yourself.”

Whatever sarcastic reply she would have liked to give him was too much effort for her. Her eyes fell shut again, one of her hands clutching feebly at the front of his armor.

Turians weren’t much for words of affection. They expressed it through a gentle hum of the subvocals, subtle movements of the mandibles, certain tender touches. These were all things he was acutely aware Shepard knew nothing about. To use _the_ word…to think it, let alone say it, was something Nihlus had never quite been comfortable with, even with Saren, someone he’d loved more than anyone else in his life…maybe the only person he had ever truly loved.

He had only said it out loud a few times, though, and Saren almost never said it. They told each other in other ways.

As loud, tactless, and vocal as humans were in so many aspects of their lives, he hadn’t anticipated that Shepard would tell him without words, hadn’t really expected she would tell him at all, but she had. She had told him everything by jumping in front of that grenade.

When the Callisto arrived, the ship medics took Shepard away immediately and Nihlus was left to wait for news on her status. She would be okay. She _had_ to be okay. He wouldn’t accept any alternative.

The med bay was located on the crew deck and every time he hovered near the door, trying to get inside, one of the crew members would pull him away and force him into the mess hall. Nyra, one of the asari technicians on the ship, offered him some water while he waited, trying to calm his nerves, but his stomach was too tight to drink anything.

“I’m sure she’ll be okay, Nihlus,” she offered. “We’ve all seen her, she’s tougher than a krogan.”

Nihlus stared at the glass of water on the table in front of him. “I hope you’re right.”

He was still in disbelief she had jumped in front of the grenade at all. What an idiot. What a completely _stupid_ , _impulsive_ idiot. How had he let this happen? The first time they’d had sex he’d told himself it wouldn’t be anything besides _just sex_ and now she was jumping in front of grenades for him.

And he would have done the same stupid thing for her.

Fuck.

He had no clue how long she was in the med bay. He kept drifting back to the doors, hoping for an update, and they kept turning him away, so eventually he resigned himself to waiting and made his way downstairs to his cabin, falling onto the couch and letting his exhaustion win out over his concern.

* * *

 

“Gee, I stop a grenade for you and you can’t even stay awake until I’m out of the med bay?”

Nihlus’ eyes snapped open and he found himself looking up at Shepard. He had been sleeping, draped across the couch, but he sat up now, slightly groggy and took in the sight of her.

She wasn’t wearing a shirt, but her chest was so heavily wrapped in bandaging that she didn’t even need one. Her right arm was set in a sling, her neck was wrapped with bandages already tinged pink from her blood, and she had a series of stitches running along her right cheek.

He exhaled slowly at the sight of her. “Shepard.”

“I know. I’ve looked better.” She stood in front of him between his legs. “Almost as ugly as you now.”

“You could have died.” He ignored her attempt to make light of the situation.

“I didn’t.”

“Shepard, you…”

“Don’t ‘Shepard’ me.” She grabbed his chin. “You shouldn’t have pushed yourself. You didn’t _need_ to. What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking, you were doing a pretty good job with your gun, so I should keep up my biotic throws while I still had the energy. Anyway, what were _you_ thinking? I’ve got thick plates.” He rapped his fingers against the side of his head to demonstrate. “It wouldn’t have hurt me nearly as bad as it hurt you.”

“Your shields were lower. You would have been blown apart. My shields took most of the blast,” she argued.

“Shep-…Freckles. You’re going to have scars for the rest of your life. You’re lucky you’re alive.”

“Well, I’d do it again if it meant saving your stupid bony behind.”

He wrapped his arms around her then, pressing the side of his face against her chest. She stroked his fringe and sighed, and his subharmonics began to vibrate at a low, humming pitch. It was a sound he hadn’t made in years, not since Saren.

“You’re _it_ , Red. I’m here. I’m all in.”

It wasn’t necessary for either of them to say those three words. They had said it already, in their own way.

He let out a long breath before he spoke. “Typical human. You have to find the most dramatic way to say what’s on your mind.”

“Yeah, well, jumping in front of a grenade seemed more our style than chocolates and roses.”

The Council was going to lose their minds when they found out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was really fun to write and covers the largest span of time of any so far. I have started working on the sequel/main story but it depends how far ahead I get written as to when I'll post that. At any rate it won't be until after I post the last chapter of this. Really glad people are enjoying it and thanks for all the lovely comments!


	5. Beginnings

_Four years post Spectre status_

Shepard liked waking up to Nihlus. Every morning was almost the same: a long stretch before rolling over to find his warm body next to hers. So when she awoke in the Spectre-issue penthouse hotel room on the Presidium and found the spot next to her cold and empty, she was disappointed.

She still took the opportunity to stretch out across the sizeable bed, though.

They were scheduled to meet with the Council that day, though she had no clue how soon she needed to be ready. She had learned long ago that being punctual didn’t really matter when you were a Spectre, and she and Nihlus got fed up with the councilors on such a regular basis that they never felt bad about making them wait a few minutes.

She didn’t have long to ponder where Nihlus had gone. He stepped into the room a moment later, already decked out in full armor.

“Oh, you’re awake now, are you?” He greeted her.

“What time is it?” She buried half of her face against the pillow. “Where were you?”

“It’s nearly nine. And I was doing some shopping down in the wards. Had to buy a component for the Callisto’s drive core. I assumed you didn’t want me to wake you just for that.” He sat on the edge of the bed and rested his hand on her hip where the sheets covered the lower half of her body. His fingers toyed with the edge of the fabric.

 “You assumed correctly.” She rolled onto her back, exposing her bare breasts. Nihlus’ eyes darted up and down her body. “Have I told you lately how sexy you are in that armor?”

His mandibles flicked into a grin. “Yes, but I never tire of hearing it.”

“Though, it would look better on the floor.”

“We have to meet with the Council at ten.” He slid the sheets a little further down her hips.

She snorted. “C’mon, Red. Don’t kid yourself. An hour is more than enough time.”

“Yes, but you still have to shower and get dressed.”

“I can do that quickly,” she said. “Besides, why shouldn’t the Council wait? Knowing them, Sparatus will be late anyway. He’s probably doing the same thing with one of his mistresses.”

Nihlus leaned over her, flicking his mandibles against her stomach. The sensation tickled, and sent a little shiver down her spine. “I suppose you’re right.”

“You better not be teasing me, Red.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, Freckles.”

He kissed her skin, trailing his kisses to the line of the sheets draped across her legs, pushing the fabric away and circling his tongue around her bellybutton. She closed her eyes and spread her legs as continued his descent, his fingers reaching between her legs before his tongue.

It didn’t matter how many times he did it, she never tired of the way his tongue felt moving against her like that.

She stroked his fringe with one hand while she propped herself up by the elbow with her other arm. His subharmonics rumbled when her fingers reached the soft spot beneath his fringe.

Over the last two years, they had come to know each other’s bodies so intimately. Hours upon hours had been spent exploring one another. As much as she hated the romantic cliché, sometimes it really did feel like she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began.

They so seldom said the words out loud, but both of them had known for a long time now what they meant to each other. The relationship had developed so naturally, the two of them so attuned to one another, that there had rarely even been a conversation about what exactly they were.

Only once had they had a serious discussion about it, almost a year and a half after they began their relationship, after Shepard had read an extranet article about turian bonding ceremonies. She had been curious, had always understood it to be the same as marriage, but once she began reading, she realized it wasn’t quite; the concept was, more or less the same, though bonding was taken far more seriously than humans usually took marriage. Separation was rare, and while some chose to have ceremonies to celebrate their partnership, others bonded in their own way.

She remembered the part of the article that had prompted her to say something to Nihlus:

_‘While bonding ceremonies are the preferred modern method of entering into a bonded relationship, some turians may choose to leave behind a bond-mark without any formal recognition of the process. Bond-marks take many forms in turian culture: an exchange or combination of colony markings, a scar given by the partner, and/or a pheromone coat.’_

“Hey Red?”

“Hm?”

“What’s a pheromone coat?”

His brow plates had shifted then. “Why?”

Her cheeks flushed. She was embarrassed to let him know what she was reading. When she didn’t answer him, he leaned against her and looked over her shoulder at the datapad in her lap. His eyes scanned the article for a moment before he spoke.

“Why are you reading about turian bonding rituals?” His tone wasn’t accusatory. He leaned back against his pillow next to her.

“I was just curious.”

“A pheromone coat is when you cover your mate in your scent.” He shrugged. “Then they carry that scent. It tells other turians that you’re bonded.”

“How do you even do that?”

“Scent glands on the finger pads.” It was such a foreign concept to her, but he discussed it as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Can I see yours?”

He snorted. “You can’t _see_ them.”

She grabbed his hand regardless, turning it over and examining his leathery digits. She was intimately familiar with the texture of his fingers, but couldn’t see where he could possibly exude any scents. She looked up at him and frowned.

“I told you.” He withdrew his hand.

“Well how does it work? Couldn’t you accidentally coat someone?”

“No,” he laughed. “It’s something I can control. Everyone lets out some scent when they touch someone, but the amount varies. When I touch you,” he stroked her cheek, “I leave a little behind. If another turian got close enough, they would smell it…or taste it. They would know I’d touched you.”

“Were…were you and Saren bonded?”

“No. I wanted to. He didn’t. Then he broke things off.”

She hated how sad he looked whenever they discussed Saren. The relationship had obviously been incredibly important to him, and though it didn’t affect him from day to day, there were times when it was clear how much the loss still hurt him.

“I’m sorry, Red.”

“Don’t be. I was young and stupid. Saren took advantage of my naivety. I know better now what love looks like.” He stared at her and the meaning of his look wasn’t lost on her.

“Has a turian…?” She felt her face grow warm. “Has a turian ever bonded with a human?”

“Probably. Turians can bond with anyone they like. You wouldn’t be able to pick up the pheromones with that useless nose of yours.” He tweaked her nose affectionately. “Look for a bite mark on the neck. Most turians who bond with a non-turian choose a scar exchange as a bond mark because their partner isn’t able to reciprocate a pheromone coat. Some do both, though.”

“How long into a relationship before that kind of decision is made? With humans it’s usually more than a year, sometimes _years_. I’m sorry…are these questions annoying? I feel like there’s so much I still don’t know about turians and…”

“Shepard.” Whatever he was going to say was important for him to address her like that.

“What?”

He kissed her softly. “You’re _it_ , Freckles. I’m here. I’m all in.”

“Red…”

He craned his neck. “Leave a mark. Only if you want to. Leave it and I’ll leave mine. You’re everything. _Everything_. All the stars in the sky.” He pressed his forehead to hers. “Mark me. Show everyone that I’m yours.”

She had never heard him say anything quite so sentimental. She traced a hand across the thick skin on his neck. “I don’t have teeth like a turian, Red. I can’t…”

“Try.”

“It will hurt.”

“Yes. And it will hurt when I do it to you. But then the pain will be over and we’ll belong to each other.”

She was surprised at how much she wanted it, how right it felt to even discuss it. She’d never given much thought to marriage, but the idea of a promise, without pomp and circumstance, appealed to her: a shared mark that let the entire galaxy know what they were. No exchange of vows, no frilly dresses, no meaningless platitudes. Just the two of them in that moment.

More surprising than such a commitment was that she was ready and willing to make one with a turian, of all people.

So she bit down on his neck, as hard as she could, but her teeth only found resistance in the leathery skin there. He gripped her back, talons pinching into her skin.

“Harder.”

She didn’t want to hurt him, but there was no other way for her blunt teeth to pierce his skin. She clamped down harder until, suddenly, the taste of copper filled her mouth. She pulled away sharply and saw the mark she had left: small, in comparison to the size of him. His blue blood trickled from the tiny crescent-moon bite-mark; she brought her hand delicately against the wound and the gravity of what she had done hit her hard.

He was hers.

Without a word, she tilted her head back to expose her neck to him. He brought his face close to her neck and licked the skin gently before sinking his teeth into her soft flesh, deeper still into her muscle. She let out a gasp and squeezed her eyes shut as a sharp pain shot down her neck and into her shoulder. But he was quick: a bite hard and deep enough to make a mark and then he pulled away.

Then he’d touched her with the very tips of his fingers, touched every inch of her

The mark Shepard had left on Nihlus’ neck was little more than a pale crescent now, almost invisible at first glance, thought it had been visible enough for Sparatus to make a comment about it the first time he saw it. She traced her finger across it while Nihlus’ head continued to move between her legs. The bond mark he’d left on her neck was far more visible, a jagged row of pale, knotted flesh on the left side of her neck; it complemented the twisted pink skin on the right side of her neck where the burns from the grenade had healed into a network of scars, a bond mark in its own way.

She’d never felt self-conscious about the burns: she had earned them protecting her life partner and she wore them like a badge of honor. Nihlus treated them the same as the rest of her, never avoiding the skin with his lips or his tongue, though she had lost much of the sensation on that side of her neck.

Since the night they had bonded, she had learned so much: about him, about turians, about herself. So many of her human-held notions of love and sex and relationships had been forgotten in favor of this new bond.

They shared each other, but sometimes they brought others into their bed, and sometimes they spent the night apart, in the arms of someone else. It was all inconsequential: sex, not love.

In the end, they only loved one another.

When she came, with his tongue between her legs, she felt overwhelmed by her love for him. He kissed up her body, dotted her face with tender pecks, nuzzled his nose against her cheek while his subharmonics hummed, that gentle, constant reminder of his devotion.

And though they so rarely used words to express their affection, she turned, brushing her nose against his, and whispered, “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

There was no longer a universe in which she could exist without him.

She had been so reluctant about being a Spectre, about Nihlus, about everything. She never imagined trusting anyone so completely, never imagined a relationship built upon so much mutual respect and admiration. Never _really_ imagined a life partner at all.

It didn’t hurt that the sex was fucking phenomenal.

She reached her hand down and unlatched the armor around his pelvis. “I think we have a little more time.” Her hand slid between his legs and she could feel that he was already out of his sheath.

He let out a small moan. “I guess we don’t have to be there _right_ at ten.”

* * *

 

There was nothing quite comparable to the post-coital euphoria Nihlus felt with Shepard. Other lovers were enjoyable, but, as loathe as he was to admit it, being in love, having that emotional connection, did change the dynamic. Sex with strangers and acquaintances was good, sex with Shepard was fantastic.

A particularly human attribute that he enjoyed was _sweat_. It was the closest she could get to marking him with pheromones, the sweat from her body rubbing against his plates. He also enjoyed the salty taste it left behind, would lick it from every curve of her body while she hummed and moaned beneath him.

He could have laid in bed with her all day, but they _did_ have a meeting with the Council, and she _could_ be quite slow getting ready, especially for their Council meetings.

His fingers tiptoed across her stomach. “Time to get ready.” He was still wearing all of his armor from the waist up, his pants tangled around his leg spurs and his pelvic and leg armor on the floor.

Groaning, she rose from the bed and shuffled away to the bathroom while he began pulling his armor back on.

Predictably, she took too long in the shower, even tried to coax him into removing his armor and joining her. He almost gave in when she let her hand slip between her legs and started moaning his name, but they were already running late and it would take him too long to get all of his armor on and off. Besides, after more than two years of fucking each other, he was familiar with _that_ particular trick of hers.

When they _finally_ left the hotel, it was after ten, and they didn’t reach the Council chambers until nearly ten thirty. To say the Councilors looked irritated would have been an understatement, but Nihlus had never particularly cared whether or not he inconvenienced them, and he and Shepard were both good at what they did, which meant the Council more or less _had_ to put up with them.

“Shepard, Kryik, so pleased you deigned to grace us with your presence,” Sparatus was the one to greet them. Each passing year brought up a million more reasons for Nihlus to dislike the man; the snide comments about their bond marks had more or less cemented his hatred.

Neither Nihlus nor Shepard offered up an apology.

“You said you had a new mission plan to discuss?” Shepard asked.

“Yes. Intel from the Alliance navy, actually.”

Shepard straightened up. It had been more than a year since the Alliance had asked Shepard for any assistance, though Nihlus knew she still kept in touch with her former C.O., David Anderson. She still wore her dog tags everywhere, never removing them, even when the rest of her clothes had gone by the wayside. There was a line in the scarring on her neck where the skin had twisted around the chain holding the tags; the ship medics said they’d had to cut the chain out with a scalpel. Her new chain rested in the divot of her scars, the tags dangling between her breasts, covered by her armor, though he could picture them easily.

“What’s the intel?” She asked.

“We got a comm from Admiral Anderson two days ago. He requested you specifically on the case, Shepard.” Sparatus’ eyes flicked briefly to Nihlus before he continued. “He had suggested a solo mission, but we understand that the likelihood of you agreeing to a mission without Kryik is…”

“Non-existent.” Shepard finished for him. “Get to the details.”

It was interesting for Nihlus to watch how Shepard’s interactions with the Council had changed. That first day, when they had awarded her Spectre status, she had been the very model of an Alliance marine, responding to each of their questions and statements with stoic dignity. Now, she was one more bad call away from spitting in their faces, he was sure. She certainly didn’t mince words with them when they were irritating her.

He felt almost _proud_ of that change.

“The Alliance received word from one of their colonies, Eden Prime. A Prothean artifact has been uncovered,” Tevos began to explain. “Some of the marines stationed on this colony have been assigned to protect the artifact until it can be extracted. Intact artifacts like this are difficult to find. Given the galactic benefit of cataloguing Prothean technology, the Alliance requested Council assistance in extracting the artifact.”

“What _kind_ of artifact is it?” Nihlus asked.

“The comm from Anderson described it as a ‘component’ to a larger piece of tech. Beyond that, his details were limited. He hasn’t seen the artifact in person.”

“When do we leave?”

“Preferably as soon as possible,” Valern spoke. “We understand you may have personal business to attend to on the Citadel. The Alliance has asked that you send a comm when you’re on your way; they want to be prepared for your arrival. The Callisto should be able to come in near the coordinates sent to us by Anderson. From there, the marines will help you load the artifact into the cargo hold. Once the artifact is secured on the Citadel, we’ll have our Prothean scholars take a look at it.”

“So, in and out. Simple extraction. Sounds like a nice break after the shit you’ve been sending us to do,” Shepard laughed.

“The work you and Kryik do is important for maintaining the safety of the galaxy, and furthermore…” Sparatus started.

“Spare me, please.” She gestured to the scars stretching across her neck. “I know the meaning of duty.”

“I don’t recall that any of the Councilors asked you to throw yourself in front of a grenade on Kryik’s behalf. We aren’t responsible for your personal relationships and decisions you make because of them.” Another almost imperceptible flick of the eyes to Nihlus.

He fingered the scar on his neck, partially out of a sense of protectiveness for Shepard and partially to draw Sparatus’ attention to it just to annoy him.

“We’ll leave tomorrow.” Shepard didn’t address the councilor’s comments.

“Excellent. We look forward to your report.”

They dismissed themselves from the Councilors’ chambers before the Councilors could leave themselves.

Nihlus waited until they were halfway down the steps leading to the elevator to the C-sec exchange before he said anything. “When’s the last time you spoke to Anderson?”

“A few weeks.” Shepard shrugged. “We’ve both been busy.”

“Sounds like a nice, smooth mission for us to run.”

“Maybe Anderson was looking out. Last time I talked to him, I may have complained at length about the last mission the Council sent us on. Back to fucking Shastinasio to pick up that batarian. He knew the Council would want a Spectre on this pickup so he requested me.”

“I’m sure the fact that he treats you like a surrogate child has nothing to do with it.” Nihlus laughed.

She used to counter such comments with typical Alliance bullshit, ‘Our relationship was strictly professional’. By now, he knew her too well for that kind of lie to slide. Anderson was the closest thing she’d ever had to a parent, and she’d stopped denying it long ago.

“Whatever the reason, I’m glad he asked for me by name. I know he won’t actually be on Eden Prime, but it’ll be nice to go to a human colony for once. They so rarely want the Council involved with these things. I mean, I can’t blame them…even with me in this role, they don’t trust most Spectres. It doesn’t help that the Council hasn’t appointed a single human to Spectre since me.” She leaned against the railing at the end of the walkway while they waited for an elevator to arrive.

“I don’t expect them to stop dragging their feet on that anytime soon, though I know Udina’s been up their asses about it.” Nihlus rolled his eyes.

The elevator arrived and they stepped inside.

“Let’s forget the mission for now. What should we do tonight while we’re still on the Citadel?”

He eyed her up and down and his mandibles flicked into a smirk. “I could think of a few things. We really should take advantage of that penthouse while we have it.”

“Is it really taking advantage of it if we spend all day in bed and don’t do anything else?”

“We’ll order room service. It gets charged to the Council. That’s taking advantage, isn’t it? Besides, we don’t have to stay in bed. There’s plenty of places in that room we could ‘take advantage of’.” His subvocals purred.

“I thought maybe we could meet someone at one of the clubs. It’s been a while since we had a threesome with anyone.”

The thought of a threesome wasn’t unappealing, but the thought of going out on the prowl at a club was. Maybe Nihlus was getting too domesticated, but spending a few hours in a loud club with his feet sticking to the alcohol-coated floor sounded miserable. Shepard had never been a huge club-goer herself, but it _was_ the best way to find a third person for their bedroom.

“We could, I guess.”

“Don’t sound so enthusiastic about it!” She folded her arms.

“I just don’t know if I’m up to a club tonight.”

The elevator came to a halt at the C-sec exchange and the two of them stepped out into the lobby.

C-sec was mostly staffed by turians, though there were the occasional asari and humans. The lobby was disproportionately turian, at any rate. A young officer in the standard-issue blue armor jogged past them, yelling for the executor, and Nihlus noticed Shepard’s eyes following him.

“ _I see_.” He laughed.

She jerked her gaze back to him. “What?”

“You want to find a turian to warm our bed, hm?”

She shrugged her shoulders noncommittally and made her way for the elevator leading back to the Presidium. Nihlus was well aware he was the only turian she had ever been with. There had been several he’d offered to bring into their bedroom, but she had always been too uncertain, and told him to have fun without her. Whoever she met up with on her own time, it was never a turian; he would have been able to smell them on her.

Inside the second elevator, she slouched against the wall.

“I have nothing to compare another turian to but you. I just worry that…I don’t know, that I’ll like it more than I should, or…” She stared past him. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”

“Maybe you should try it alone,” he suggested. “I’m not worried you’ll be so enamored with another turian’s tongue or cock that you’ll forget me. I hardly think sex is the foundation of our relationship.”

“Well, it is how we got things started.” She grinned.

He brushed his hand across her bond mark. “Whoever touches you, they’ll know we belong to each other. You’re curious about it, you want to know what it’s like. So go out and find a turian and let him take you home. Or her, I’m not making any assumptions. I know I’ll still see you in the morning and then I’ll lick his scent off of you on the way to Eden Prime. _Repeatedly_.”

She had been hesitant about the relatively open nature of their relationship at first, and for her, he had been willing to never touch anyone else again as long as he lived, but over time they had both reached different levels of comfort and compromise. He couldn’t even remember the first time she’d had sex with someone else after they had bonded, but they had both done it plenty of times since.

Obviously, it must have felt different for her with a turian.

“I know you don’t mind, Red. I just…I almost feel bad that I’m so curious about it.”

“Don’t.” He wouldn’t mention that he hadn’t touched another human, outside of those they brought into their threesomes, since they had bonded. That was _his_ preference, she would find her own.

“It doesn’t have to be tonight. You want to spend the night in bed at the penthouse.”

“And you want to find out what another turian would feel like. Go. I have lots of old friends on the Citadel. I can keep myself busy for one night without you.” He kissed the top of her head.

“I’ll think about it. But it’s still early and I don’t have to decide right now. Let’s go to that Vietnamese restaurant in Zakera ward and get some lunch.”

Nihlus still had a hard time telling apart all the different regions and nationalities humans came from back on Earth, though Shepard had an equally difficult time piecing apart turian colonies and their associated markings. He knew enough to know he liked Vietnamese food, which was really saying something considering most human restaurants rarely had palatable dextro food. The restaurant in Zakera ward was a frequent stop of theirs whenever they returned to the Citadel.

“All right, but you’re buying, Freckles.”

“I thought you said ‘what’s mine is yours’. Besides, I know how much money you make, Red. You could foot this one.”

“Typical human, always trying to get out of responsibility.”

“What? Is that really a human stereotype?” She crossed her arms.

“It is if I say it is.”

“Typical turian, making shit up to make himself look better.”

“Now _that’s_ definitely a made-up stereotype.” He jabbed her in the arm with his finger.

“All right…whoever made the other cum last doesn’t have to pay.”

“That’s not fair!” He protested. “I make sure you enjoy yourself first and I’m being punished for it?”

The meal would not cost more than fifty credits and they both knew as much, but one of their favorite past-times was arguing over inane and meaningless things. Actual serious arguments between them were rare, though, as with any couple, they occurred. They had worked out long ago how to communicate openly and honestly, which had the effect of strengthening a relationship few understood.

A turian and a human in love.

 _Bonded_.

Nihlus knew it wasn’t what the Council had in mind when they paired them together to ‘improve turian-human relations’, but he couldn’t help but think that a lot of diplomatic relations could probably have been improved that way.

As they made their way down to Zakera Ward, arguing the whole way about who would foot the bill, he considered all that had led them together. He loved her, unquestioningly more than anyone he had ever loved, more than he had loved Saren, by far. When Saren had requested his transfer, Nihlus thought his heart would never mend. He never imagined he would be _thankful_ for the split, because it had led him to Shepard, just as he knew she would never have imagined she’d grow to enjoy her role as Spectre.

Whatever the future held for them, he was happy to face it with her at his side.

And a routine artifact pickup on Eden Prime would be a nice, slow change of pace from their usual missions. He was even looking forward to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't remember if the the C-sec exchange actually even leads to the Citadel tower but it does now because plot points. Anyway I HAVE started working on the sequel to this - the altered ME1 timeline. Once I get a bit more written ahead I'll start posting it. Thanks to all who read and commented on this fic! It's the shortest I've ever written and the first one I've ever finished and it was a lot of fun to write!


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